You Belong with Me
by daffodil101
Summary: What if Broadsky hadn't shot Vincent...  but taken Brennan?  How far will Booth have to go to get her back?  Set after 3rd last ep. of Season 6 'The Sign in the Silence.'
1. Chapter 1

_Hello, this is Dr Temperance Brennan, well actually it is… just my voicemail. Please leave a concise message and I will return your call. If it's pertinent._

'Dammit.' Booth hung up. This was the eighth time he'd called her, only to have her phone ring out. After the first missed call last night he hadn't worried- it had been a draining case, and she was probably just having a quiet night in, relaxing and ignoring her phone. But it was now 4pm on a Wednesday, and he just had a bad feeling.

'Bones!' Booth strode through the lab and opened the door to Brennan's office. 'Huh.' It looked exactly as it had the previous afternoon- perfectly clean and ordered, except for a few files spread out over the desk and one empty coffee cup beside the couch.

'She's not here,' Angela said from behind him.

'Yeah, I got that.'

'I tried her phone thismorning, no answer. I mean, she's never away from work, but if she is she always calls.'

'Yeah.' Booth scrubbed a hand over his face. 'I was just in the area, thought I'd try my luck. I need her half of the paperwork to close this case up…'

Angela looked at him pointedly, not buying that sorry excuse of a reason for wanting to see Brennan. 'I called her home phone, she wasn't picking up. Look, maybe she just, you know, wanted some space? After the case, I mean, an abused teenage girl, that's gotta hit close to home. I'd be pulling the BFF card right now, if this baby wasn't kicking me like a soccer ball.'

'Yeah, I know, thanks Ange. Uh…while I'm here is Cam around?'

'Sure, up on the platform.'

Booth nodded his thanks and took off up the stairs two at a time, swiping himself in with the Jeffersonian pass Bones had given him, one quiet night years ago at Wong Fu's. Cam was herding a group of prospective interns, and not very calmly.

'There are no internships available in our lab at the moment, everyone goes onto a shortlist and then a waiting list for positions. There's no jumping the queue. Yes?'

A stocky kid, probably 19 was having a hard time hearing 'no'. 'I'm top of my class! I don't understand why I'm not on the shortlist, my results speak for themselves—'

'Dr Brennan makes all the decisions about who to take on. If you're unhappy, it's too bad, there's a system and you're in it. Booth,' she said, looking rather grateful for the interruption. 'Have you seen Brennan? She was supposed to be er, handling this…' She waved her hand at the disgruntled grad students.

'You haven't heard from her?'

Cam frowned and moved over to talk to Booth more privately. 'What do you mean you haven't heard from her? You two left for the diner yesterday, did she have plans she forgot to tell everyone about?'

'Uh, I sort of hoped you could tell me.'

Cam raised her eyebrows. 'Whoa, you're on your own there, you're the one who's supposed to know what she's up to and whether she… ate lunch, or whatever.'

'Well usually I do-'

'Not so much recently,' Cam muttered.

'Sorry?'

Cam released a breath and slumped her shoulders a bit. 'I'm sorry, that was low. I mean… well you've been, you know, _Booth and Brennan_ a bit more the last few months.'

Booth glanced away. 'Hannah was a mistake. I've moved on, Cam. I was just trying to, I guess, do the right thing by her, back then…'

'Well at least you did the right thing by one of them.'

'Look Cam, I know it was a mess, but we're getting back to being… us. I screwed up, but now it's over. I would never give up on Bones.'

Cam looked like she forgave him. 'Okay, big man. I know you'd never hurt her intentionally. You're the lion heart guy.'

'Huh. Thanks, I think.'

'Just don't mess it up this time. I know you've waited for her a long time, but she's waited for you too. Don't let her down.'

'I'm more than happy to move forward with Bones, when the time is right, but it's not much use if I can't even find her.'

Cam shrugged. 'It's only been a day, you know how she sometimes gets after cases. Maybe check Limbo? She wasn't there when I looked but you never know…'

'Yeah okay.'

Cam turned back to Brennan's students and continued trying to explain the selection process. Booth hurried down the stairs and jogged across the lab and down to Limbo.

Technically Cam was right, it had been less than 24 hours. Maybe the way he'd shut Bones out of his life during those awful months of being with the wrong woman… well, he wouldn't blame her if she was less than open and trusting. But Bones wasn't like other women. She wasn't like anyone, and she didn't play games. He knew her, and she was always up front. And the last few months, especially the last few weeks- Bones had stuck close, loyal and faithful a friend as ever, in spite of her crushed heart. And they'd talked, actually _talked_ about moving to the next level. They were on the same page, Booth was sure of it. Bones would never just shut him out, not in the 6th year of their partnership, unless there was an extremely good reason, and she wouldn't do it out of spite. If she was upset with him, he would have picked up on it. But she wasn't- she was hopeful, and a bit timid, but brave too. And whenever they were together she was always right there at his side.

Booth called out for her and did a quick sweep of Limbo, finding it completely empty, and no sign of any half-finished work. He decided to swing by her apartment. She was probably there, maybe sick or, he smiled at the thought, so engrossed in the work she'd taken home she'd forgotten she was meant to be at the lab.

Booth didn't really need to go up, he could tell from the darkened windows that no one was home. Every other apartment was lit up thisevening, the scents of what various people were having for dinner wafting down to the street. He forewent the elevator in favour of stairs, wanting to burn up some restless energy. He felt pretty good about himself that he wasn't out of breath when he reached her door.

'Bones! Wakey wakey, open up Bones!'

After knocking and waiting for… far longer than it would take to open the door, Booth dug his hand into his pocket and found the spare key she'd had cut for emergencies. Imagining her face, a cute mix of annoyance and adoration, coming to the door in a bath robe or something, he turned the lock, swung the door open and fumbled for the light switch. As the down-lights flickered to life, Booth's sniper sense kicked into overdrive. _Something was wrong_. He could feel it.

The first thing he noticed was her coat. The stylish beige coat she had worn yesterday, draped over the back of her couch. And next to it… her handbag. He slid open the zipper and glanced inside—sure enough, there was her phone. It beeped at him and the message '11 missed calls' flashed on the screen. His heart in his mouth, Booth moved through the apartment, checking the rooms in case, somehow, she was there. Every room was dark. He wandered into her bedroom, feeling irrationally guilty about being there without her express permission. The bed was made, and one, two high heels had been kicked off and lay on the floor, heading towards her ensuite. Booth re-enacted her movements—so far she'd obviously come home, dumped what she was carrying and headed straight for the shower. Pushing open the door, he switched on the light.


	2. Chapter 2

Blood. That was all he saw. Suddenly his head was pounding, as if it was him who had been attacked. _Injured_, he told himself. He didn't know how yet. _Okay. Think like Bones. Work out what happened. Don't panic. Be rational…_

The blood was smeared on the bathroom counter, on the sink and looked a lot worse because it was reflected in the mirror. _Not enough that she bled out._ Her skirt lay crumpled on the floor, as if she'd just unzipped it and stepped out if it, getting undressed for the shower. There were no other clothes- Booth used one finger to lift the lid of her laundry hamper. _Treating it like a crime scene,_ he thought, wondering if he should be wearing gloves or something.

The hamper was empty, and her towel hung neatly on the rail, so he deduced she'd never made it to the shower, and was probably still wearing everything but her skirt. He turned back to the blood, his own blood beginning to boil in undirected anger. What if she slipped or something… went to find first aid… But she probably kept the kit in the bathroom. Booth nudged the cupboard door beneath the sink open with one foot. The first aid kit was sitting there neatly, and was a bit dusty. Definitely not recently used.

Biting down the instinct to panic, and trying to think through everything logically, he did another sweep of the house. Maybe she went into another room and fainted. It was a long shot, but he had to be sure. Flipping on every light he could find, he looked under her bed and the one in the guest room, inside her closet, in the laundry again, under the desk in her office.

_Of course she's not just lying around fainted_, he admonished himself, _she'd have to be unconscious, and since last night…_

Running out of ideas, Booth headed back over to her handbag and fished out her phone again. Maybe there was a planner on here, that would tell him if she needed to be out of town suddenly… a text message, an email, some family emergency… Fumbling with the unfamiliar phone a bit, he soon realised it was a dead end. There had to be a second person.

He checked the front door, and the windows. Nothing showed signs of being forced open. Apart from the blood in the bathroom there was no obvious sign of foul play.

'Dammit,' hissed Booth, slamming his fist against the couch. He fished his phone out and speed-dialled Cam.

'Hello?' she said, picking up on the sixth ring.

'Hey, it's me. Um, I'm at Bones' apartment…'

'Is she there?'

'Not exactly.'

'What do you—'

'Some of her blood is here.'

'Wow. Okay, what do you need me to do? Hodgins?'

'Yeah, Hodgins, maybe…. Not Angela, she… she shouldn't get all stressed with the baby…'

'You're starting to ramble, Seeley.' Cam said. 'I'll— I'll call Hodgins for you and come over. Be there in twenty.'

'Don't call me that, and thanks,' Booth said, feeling glad he had the squints in his corner. He knew what needed to happen—call the FBI forensics team, look for evidence, find out what happened. He just couldn't help but freeze up for a moment—that he suddenly was working a case not only without Bones at his side, but about her. As a victim.

_She's not a victim_, he thought angrily. She's a fighter. She'd never go down without a fight.

Cam must have called the FBI too, cos when Booth rang they informed him they'd just dispatched a team. Booth went to sit on Brennan's couch, then thought better of it and leaned against the kitchen bench instead. Better not to get DNA on everything. Anyone who'd got the drop in Brennan, they'd need all the forensic evidence they could get. Booth briefly thought that his DNA would be all over the furniture from his years of partnership and friendship with Bones, but then he thought that over the last year, he hadn't been here more than twice. This fact weighed heavily, so Booth was relieved when he heard knocking from the hallway.

'Hey Booth,' greeted Hodgins as he lugged in a case full of equipment. 'Man, you didn't find her? you really think someone's been in here?'

'Just… go check out the bathroom, 'kay Hodgins? Please.'

The bug guy clapped Booth on the shoulder and made his way to the back of the apartment.

Cam was next to arrive, carrying a black light and a bag of some other squinty medical gadgets, Booth didn't really care. The FBI techs showed up soon after, putting up yellow crime-scene tape and dispersing throughout the apartment, checking again for signs of forced entry or any evidence Booth might have missed.

'Wow, okay, so I got a sample of the blood on the sink,' Hodgins said 15 minutes later. 'It's probably hers but we'll run DNA to check. I black-lighted the bathroom, nothing else showed up so whoever was in there, wasn't there for long and didn't clean anything up.'

'Did you touch the door knob, Booth?' Cam called from Brennan's room.

'No, it was open. I turned all the lights on.'

'Good. Cos I got a print, might just be Brennan's but if it's not we'll find a match.'

Another forty minutes and Booth was sitting at the kitchen table, head in his hands trying to think. Think of what, he wasn't exactly sure- but if thinking was going to help, then he'd sit there and think all night.

Finally- 'Agent Booth? I think we've got something.'

One of the FBI techs beckoned him over to a window over the balcony. 'There was a short hair, fine, dark grey in the window,' he said, holding up an evidence bag. 'Also a spatter of blood on the balcony, about as fresh as the blood in the bathroom.'

'Good. So it's not Bones' hair?'

'No, definitely not.'

'Couldn't have just blown there…'

'If it matches the fingerprint Dr Saroyan pulled, we could have our guy.'

'There's also some fabric fibres stuck in the window ledge,' called Hodgins.

'Great. Now can we get back to the lab and get cracking?'

Hodgins and Cam shared a look. Booth glared at them, trying to look intimidating. 'Yeah, man. We might call for backup tomorrow though. I haven't slept for two nights… when Angela can't sleep, no one sleeps…'

'Thanks. Now let's get going, back to the lab—'

'You're going home,' Cam said pointedly.

'What? No. I'm not gonna lie around sleeping while Bones is, is…'

'We don't _know_ she's been kidnapped, then evidence isn't conclusive yet—'

'She could be in a hospital! Oh—how did I not think of that? I have to call—'

'Yeah Cam already did that,' Hodgins said. 'Look, I'll go back and get the DNA tests fast-tracked, should have results by tomorrow morning…' He held up a hand in a wave and headed out to the elevator, carting his equipment.

'Go home, Booth. Get some sleep while we find an ID. You won't be much use if you get no sleep.'

'No I'm coming, I'll sleep in Bones' office. Hey, uh, Hodgins. Wait up. You- lock the door behind you?' he called to one of the techs.

'Sure thing Agent Booth,' the guy called back.

Booth went after Hodgins into the elevator, and immediately regretted not taking the chance to run down the stairs. He waited impatiently as Hodgins phones Angela and filled her in. Angela sounded pretty upset from what he could hear, but right now he was barely registering what was happening around him. He wasn't imagining worst-case scenarios of what could have happened, or cataloguing anyone he could think of who had a grudge against Brennan. Instead he seemed to be stuck on loop, like a broken, skipping vinyl. _Bones. Bones. Bones_. All he could think was her name. He couldn't get another thought into his head.

Hodgins strode out of the building on the ground floor, Booth dazedly trailing behind him. Hodgins raised an eyebrow when Booth climbed into the passenger seat, rather than heading for his SUV, but didn't say anything. Booth seemed to be in shock right now- fair enough, really. If anything like this happened to Angela, he'd be about the same.

The drive to the lab was pretty quiet. Booth didn't say a word, but Hodgins could feel the vibes coming off him in waves. He was turning his shock and fear into anger. His right fist, closed around his keys, turned white at the knuckles. Hodgins told him calmly what the next steps were again, just to give him something to focus on—Run DNA tests. Go through the fingerprint database. Compare the blood sample to Brennan's- which, he reminded Booth, was on file from a case years ago, so nothing to worry about there. Booth tried to respond but he was just seeing red. They didn't even _know_ anything, and he wanted to kill someone. Bones was _his_. No one had the right to just take her, against her will. He was furious he hadn't been there to protect her. This would never have happened if he'd just _been there_.

They pulled into the lab carpark, Cam's car close behind them, and both got out and headed to the elevator. Booth charged ahead, knowing full well it was useless—he wasn't going to be any use for the forensics stuff, and he couldn't hunt anyone down without an ID. Cam caught up to them, sticking out her hand to stop the doors from closing and making them wait a few more seconds. Booth was visibly fuming. Cam wanted to smile and roll her eyes, but couldn't bring herself to do it.

'Right. Here's what we're going to do,' she announced as they reached the doors of the lab. 'Hodgins and I are on DNA. Booth—you are either going to sleep in Brennan's office, or you're going up to the Jeffersonian gym. No—no arguments, this is my lab and if you're going to be here you're following my rules. Got it?'

Booth grunted that he did, and aimlessly hung back as the scientists made a beeline for their offices. He wandered into Brennan's office, feeling completely useless, but found he couldn't be in there without wanting to rip the place apart, as irrational as that was. He wasn't angry at _her_, but he wanted to just… do _something_. After a minute he took Cam's advice and went in search of the staff gym.

By 9pm (how had it got that late?) he was signing into the gym and dumping his tie and jacket in a locker. Annoyed now that he'd left his car and a change of gym clothes, he found the first free punching bag and pummelled it into oblivion. It helped. After about an hour of punching the daylights out of it, he found the biggest, most heavy-duty treadmill in the gym and just ran.

It was about one in the morning when he finally went back to the lab, drenched in sweat but hardly caring. He felt a lot better. Exhausted too, now he'd hopefully be able to sleep. He wandered back to Bones' office, thought about laying on the couch but didn't want to make it smell like sweat, so headed over to the platform where Cam was working.

'Hey Cam.'

'Hey. You look… calmer.'

'Yeah, the gym was good. How are we going?'

'Just waiting on the results now. It usually takes 24 hours but I've fast-tracked it so should only be another four. Managed to get a tech in to run it for us. You should get some sleep.'

'Yeah, I was… damn, I want my car.'

'I can send someone to pick it up.'

'Nah, I should go home. I'll get a cab. I'll… see you in four hours.'

'Just come in by 9,' Cam called after him. 'Get some sleep, Seeley. We'll get your ID, then you can go get him.'

Booth strode straight out to the taxi rank, jacket slung over one arm, feeling like he'd just had a big night out. The cab dropped him off at Brennan's building, where he forced himself to go straight to the SUV and drive it home. He grabbed a beer on his way to the shower, drank half of it, washed the sweat off and collapsed into bed. _2am, not too bad_, he thought. He set his alarm for 7 and was out like a light.


	3. Chapter 3

She was there. She was _right there_. Booth could have sworn it as the alarm went off—she'd been just ahead of him, nearly in his arms, just out of reach.

He couldn't remember anything about the dream but that she'd been so close. Just not close enough. Groaning he shut the alarm off, hauling himself out of bed and blundering over to his closet. _Today is Thursday_. He remembered Parker babbling about some song that had the days of the week. 'It's so funny, Dad, you have to listen to it—I mean everyone knows that Saturday comes after Friday, but she sings it anyway. No, it's not _cool_, dad, it's funny, get it? It's good because it's bad? Daaad…'

Booth suddenly wanted to talk to his son. _You have to cherish the people around you_, he thought. _One day they could be gone, you can't take anything for granted..._ It was before school, Parker wouldn't have left yet.

'Rebecca? Hi. It's me—I just wondered, can I talk to Parker?... No, I just wanted to say hi, no reason…. Bec, come on, I'm his dad. He'll get to band rehearsal on time, just give him a pop tart…. Thanks.'

'Dad? Dad!'

'Hey, buddy. What's going on?'

'Oh, not much, we're doing this really great piece in Band, in the middle of the song we get to stop and yell 'tequila!' and clap, it's awesome…'

'Tequila? That's a weird thing to yell, what sort of song is this anyway?'

'It's called 'La Bamba', it's okay, I like the Star Wars theme better, but in La Bamba I get a to play a solo.'

'Hey that's great! You must be getting really good.'

'Well it's all the trombones, me and Tillie and Matt but still, it's 2 bars. Tillie's alright but Matt always stuffs it up. But Dad- we have sport today, we're doing basketball and I'm getting really good at shooting hoops. Can we go to the park on the weekend and practice?'

'Um, I'm not sure buddy, I would love to but I'll let you know, okay? It's been so busy at…' Booth trailed off, recoiling at the thought of taking time out and not looking for Brennan. Then he remembered why he'd called his son in the first place. _Don't take it for granted._ 'You know what? Yes. Absolutely. I'll be there.'

'Cool!'

'You might even beat me, you're getting so tall.'

'Yeah, I grew 2 inches from the last time Mum measured me.'

'I believe it. Hey you'd better get going to school, don't want to miss the solo.'

'Yeah, okay. I'll see you on Saturday?'

'Yes you will. I'll uh… I'll call to let you know what time, I'll probably have a lot on so it might be the afternoon, okay? Then we'll go out for pizza.'

'Awesome! Um, Mum's waving at me to get off the phone. Okay, bye, love you Dad.'

'Love you too Parks. Bye.'

Booth hung up the phone, the heavy old rotary phone he'd been given by…. Well, he knew it was really from Bones. Suddenly he was thinking of rain, and tequila. He pushed the thoughts out of his head and made himself go through the routine of getting dressed, putting on toast, taking his gun out of the safe, making coffee, brushing his teeth. Just as he was about to leave he caught a glimpse of a white envelope, slipped under the front door. He picked it up by one corner, then turned it upside-down and shook out a single sheet of paper. Whoever had written it didn't care too much about anonymity cos they hadn't bothered to type or cut out letters from magazines. In thick, neat capital letters right in the middle of the page it said, 'For the greater good, Seeley.'

Booth grabbed his phone from his pocket, not looking away from the letter on the ground. 'Cam, hi. I think I know who we're looking for…. It's Jacob Broadsky.'

**A/N So… technically you already knew it was Broadsky, cos I put it in the summary. We should see a bit more of Parker later on, cos he's pretty awesome. Got that whole Booth-charm thing in Funsize. I would really appreciate if you leave a comment to let me know if I suck or not! Heh. Otherwise it's like I'm talking to myself, which is kinda weird. If you can't think of anything to say, say 'I can't think of anything to say but I woz here' or tell me a joke, the less logical the better. The plot thickens in the next chapter, plus it's longer to make up for this short one. Thanks guys! :oP**


	4. Chapter 4

Booth, Cam, Hodgins and Angela sat in the red chairs on the walkway that overlooked the lab, each with a coffee and all the data they had so far spread out across the table. Angela had been crying most of the morning before getting to the lab, but had pulled herself together and was already vowing to take out whoever took Brennan with nothing but hormone-fuelled rage and her fingernails. Hodgins kept looking at her nervously, not sure if she was going to burst into tears or march out to find to SOB herself.

'What have you got, Cam?' Booth asked as Sweets, who was apparently still on Cam's speed dial, came up the steps two at a time.

'The blood is Brennan's. I checked the sample, it's inconsistent with menstrual fluid so it definitely came from an injury. While we don't know exactly how much time passed between sustaining the injury, and her leaving the apartment, it's reasonable to assume she didn't bleed out, although we couldn't find evidence of a struggle and she was still losing blood when she left.'

'When she was taken,' Booth said, trying not to grit his teeth.

'I know this is hard, Booth, but we have to treat this as scientifically as we do any other case—'

'It's _not_ any other case.'

'—because that's how we get results. We work from _evidence_. That's how crimes get solved, and we're going to give the same high standard of work to Dr Brennan's case as we would to any other. We can't get sloppy and distracted because we know her, people. We have to give her case… the best work we can.'

Booth glanced at Cam and was somewhat mollified to see her wipe at her eyes. 'Yeah, okay. We get it. Evidence and results. So what did you get?' he turned to Hodgins.

'The fingerprint on the door was a match for Jacob Broadsky, just like you said. He wasn't on the criminal database but I checked the army records and it's a match for his right thumb print.'

'Good. What about…'

'The hair? I got a DNA profile for it, we have nothing to compare it to of course but it definitely matches what we see in Broadsky's photo. We'll keep the DNA on record and can use it to place Broadsky at Brennan's apartment once we get a sample from him.'

'I think if we find Broadsky I'll just make him confess—'

'Evidence, Booth,' Cam reminded quietly. Angela sniffed.

'Okay. What about the fibres?'

'Yeah. They were from a green cotton garment, snagged on a rough brick in the window ledge—'

'Brennan's top, I picked it out for her when we went shopping… for baby clothes, it looked great on her,' said Angela quietly, holding her belly protectively.

_It did_, Booth thought, though the image conjured in his mind was of Brennan's blue eyes and soft smile when they closed their last case, not of what she was wearing. _She could wear anything and it wouldn't matter. She'd still be beautiful_. And she'd gotten… softer, too, Booth decided, not knowing exactly how to quantify the change, but knowing it was inspired by him. And that just made him angrier—that she was gone, with someone who had a grudge against him, and was obviously willing to hurt others to get to him. It seemed cruelly ironic that just as Brennan was learning how to open up to someone, to him, to let her barriers down, she was kidnapped and would be better off having every barrier she could find.

'So Broadsky,' Angela said. 'Why… what does he want Brennan for?'

'Revenge,' Booth said quietly.

'Revenge for what?' Angela asked. 'What did Brennan do…'

'She did nothing. She's close to me, that's all. She's… she's collateral.' He spat the word out, making an effort to keep himself in check. 'If I had just— He's after me. He's going after the people…. I love, to get to me.'

Heavy silence fell for a few moments. 'I know that he's not… the nicest guy, but why is he focussed on Booth?' Cam started.

Sweets piped up. 'Because Booth has shown Broadsky that they aren't on the same team. Broadsky thinks he can make decisions about who lives or dies, that he can play god. Booth refuses to let that happen. So Broadsky, wants to take out Booth…'

'…and anyone close to him or that gets in his way. Oh my gosh Booth- Parker,' said Angela. The others looked at each other, beginning to realise the implications, for all of them.

'Parker and Rebecca were taken into protective custody half an hour ago, as soon as I knew Broadsky was responsible. They're in an FBI safehouse until we get Jacob behind bars. I… I guess I won't be shooting hoops with Parker this weekend,' he added quietly.

'I'll… get a protective detail sorted out for the lab,' Cam said, grabbing her phone and walking away.

The others sat quietly, half-listening to Cam making phone calls. No one seemed to be able to say anything. They'd been targeted by criminals before, but every time it happened, it seemed worse. What were they playing at, doing these jobs- tempting fate over and over, seeing how close they could get to the edge, like kids playing on the edge of a cliff?

They'd got through it in the past—there'd been text messages to decipher, or soil samples to analyse. But now Brennan, who always knew what to do, was gone, and alone. How were they going to find her?

'So do we know what happened to Brennan next?' asked Angela eventually. Booth looked up at her, and then everyone turned to Hodgins.

'Uh… not exactly,' Hodgins shrugged. 'I mean, however he did it, it was pretty clean. I've been talking to the FBI forensic unit, they scouted out the roof of the building, the concrete below, questioned the doorman, got feeds from the CCTV security cameras… there was nothing. But Broadsky, he… you know, he's not exactly the type to shy away from getting caught…'

Angela looked puzzled but Booth nodded in agreement. 'Yeah, Hodgins is right, he wants us to know it's him. He knew he'd leave a thumbprint- he didn't care. He left me a note knowing I'd trace it back to him. He broke into my apartment a few months ago—he's not scared of us.'

'Don't underrate yourself, I think he is,' said Angela. She looked at the two guys and shrugged. 'I mean, he sees you as a threat, Booth. He like, respects you. He's singling you out because you're the one person who could take him down. He's trying to get to you first.'

The team sat in silence. After a minute, Booth grabbed his empty coffee mug and smashed it on the ground. No one said anything, but Booth seemed to feel better after finally destroying something, and leaned back in his chair, staring up at the ceiling.

'…Okay, thanks Jim. That's great. Okay bye.' Cam ended her call and strode back to the others. 'I've just heard from—whoa, cleanup on aisle four.' She stepped around the smashed cup, glancing knowingly at Booth, who was avoiding her gaze but looking much calmer. She took a seat. 'FBI security detail's on the way, they'll accompany us on any field work and also start sweeping the lab for bugs, any unauthorised equipment, checking the video feeds to see if Broadsky or anyone suspicious has been here. It'll probably come up empty but we'd be remiss not to do it.'

'Okay. Good. I'm gonna call it in to Hacker,' said Booth, standing up. For the first time since breaking into Bones' apartment last night, he felt like himself again. Special Agent Seeley Booth, FBI. Ex-Army Ranger and sniper, the guy who could shoot a hole through a dime on the run. He had an ID, and damn if he wasn't going to do something about it.

Judy Baggins was having a good day. Her boss Assistant Director Andrew Hacker (who she secretly rather liked), was in a good mood and looking exceptionally handsome today in his crisp pinstripe suit (a look which he could _definitely_ pull off, thought Judy). And when he was in a good mood… well, it was a bit hard not to smile right back, and she'd been extra chirpy on the phone all morning.

Also, she'd gotten that extra shot of hazelnut in her latte (it was Hacker's favourite indulgence and she had grown quite partial to it herself), and when she'd taken in Hacker's coffee he'd looked so happy that she just… slipped the hazelnut one to him instead. She was just in a generous mood thismorning. The girl at Starbucks had given her a free cookie since she'd earned one on her loyalty card, and she could swear that Mr. Hacker _winked_ at her as she dropped off the coffee and his mail at his desk at half past eight. He was probably a bit too old for her, really… but he was definitely single. As his secretary, Judy knew that for certain—in fact he had only had two girlfriends in the last couple of years, one that lasted eight months (Jennifer… Judy had developed a slight aversion to that name, nothing personal of course) and before that, the prickly scientist woman who was always with that… well, rather exceptional male specimen Seeley Booth.

But Judy shook herself out of it. Booth wasn't an Assistant Director of the FBI (which _really_ was very impressive, I mean surely Hacker was better than Booth or Booth would be director, wouldn't he!) Also, what kind of a first name was Seeley? I mean, it was nothing like _Andrew_, 'Andrew' had such a nice ring to it… She sighed and allowed herself a little peek through the window into Mr Hacker's office. He was reading something intently, probably scribbling his name after the microscopic fine print on some dreadful form, leaning over onto the table. Judy sighed again. He's so committed to his work, she thought, that's such an _attractive_ quality…

The phone rang and she picked up brightly. 'Assistant Director Hacker's office, this is Judy speaking, how can I help you!' she recited, glancing again through the window as Mr Hacker worked.

'Hi there, it's Agent Booth. Can you put me through?'

Judy rolled her eyes. Booth was… well maybe he was a little bit out of her league, and was always attached at the hip to that odd scientist woman, not that she was so petty as to resent him for that, but he really could show Mr Hacker a little more respect. He was _much_ higher up the food chain, after all, and, she added on reflection, he was probably jealous of Hacker.

'Oh, certainly Agent Booth, I'm putting you through now.' She buzzed the direct line to Hacker's office and waited for him to pick up.

Usually Mr Hacker would pick up after one or two rings- he was so nice that way, he'd never keep her waiting on the line while he took his sweet time. You'd think that someone as important as an Assistant Director wouldn't bother thinking of his staff and treating them with respect but Mr Hacker _always_ did. However this time, the phone kept ringing. Six… seven times… Judy glanced through the office window to see him still intently reading whatever horrid paperwork he had to approve. He probably didn't want to break his concentration. She frowned and waited. Fifteen, sixteen rings and Mr Hacker hadn't moved. Maybe the phone in his office was broken and wasn't actually ringing.

Judy got up, brushed down her pencil skirt and adjusted her heels, and rapped softly on his office door. 'Mr Hacker? There's an agent on line one for you.' He didn't answer, so she pushed open the door and stepped inside. 'Mr- AAHHHHH!'

Booth frowned into the phone. It was taking an awfully long time to patch through to Hacker. The FBI Muzak was awful, as usual. After nearly five minutes on hold, the call connected—but not to Hacker. The ditzy receptionist was back, sobbing into the phone. 'It's Mr Hacker, something's happened—I have to get security up here right away—'

The line went dead and Booth, now in his SUV and pulling out of the lab parking lot, groaned in frustration. If he couldn't get through he'd just go see Hacker in person, as he was going to the Hoover anyway. But every minute on the clock was time that Bones might not have. Booth flipped on the siren and was at the Hoover in record time.

There was quite a crowd of people as he stepped out of the elevator on Hacker's floor. Something was going on… There were EMTs milling around, yelling at people to stand back, wheeling a gurney out of Hacker's office. Booth looked around, trying to find out what was going on. A girl in the office was sobbing hysterically and two agents were talking to her—he recognised her as Hacker's receptionist. As everyone else seemed to be congregating there for no real reason, Booth made his way over to the girl and the agents to find out.

One of the guys was trying to calm her down. 'We just need to get a statement, Ms Baggins, then you're free to go down to first aid—'

'What the hell's going on?' asked Booth.

This seemed to make the receptionist wail even louder, but she seemed making an effort to answer. 'I— I knocked on his door because he wasn't answering the phone, and that is _so_ unusual, he always does—and I went in, I thought he was you know, signing documents but—he—he _wasn't_, he was just slouched over, hardly _breathing_, and his coffee was knocked over, and the phone was going and he just _wasn't moving_—'

The EMTs wheeled Hacker past them and into the elevator, the sight of which made Judy so hysterical that she was useless for any further information.

'Right— thank you, Ms Baggins, you're free to go… Bill maybe you should take her down…'

One of the agents escorted Judy downstairs, still wailing loudly, and Booth slipped into Hacker's office. Just as the girl had said, coffee was spilled all over the table. Hacker hadn't been signing any papers- all he'd done was open a couple of letters. Booth leaned over at one of the envelopes— white and unmarked, with a sheet of folded paper that had been written on with a thick black pen. Booth reached across and picked it up by one coffee-stained corner, still dripping onto the desk. His stomach lurched even as he read it—he knew exactly who it was from.

'_For using your brains_.'


	5. Chapter 5

After the assassination attempt, the entire Hoover was essentially in lockdown. All cases were temporarily frozen and agents were reassigned to checking the building for security breaches. Booth had been ropable at not getting his case to Hacker, but quickly realised this wasn't too bad an outcome, because with such a high-profile incident the Broadsky case was well and truly on the radar, and Booth figured he'd have no trouble getting resources and agents to help track him down. After several hours of waiting to speak to Deputy Director Cullen, who was in urgent meetings all morning, Booth heard they'd figured out that the coffee on Hacker's desk had been laced with something poisonous, and that other similar cases of poisoning were appearing in droves all over town. A group of agents closed down the Starbucks down the road, which appeared to be the common denominator, and were currently testing everything in the store to find the source of the outbreak.

As soon as he heard this, he'd gone straight up to Hacker's office and collected a sample of the spilt coffee, then had it couriered to the Jeffersonian care of Dr Jack Hodgins. Just after 1pm Hodgins texted him the results:

'_Thallium poisoning. They got 2 him fast so he should b ok in a couple of weeks._'

Booth texted a quick '_Thanx'_ back, now sitting outside Cullen's office with both of the cryptic messages and his laptop open searching for leads on Broadsky.

The door to the conference room swung open and Cullen came out. 'Ah, Booth. Conference call finally over. Now I hear we've got a situation with who was it, Broadsky. Step into my office.'

Booth, smiling grimly, gave him a Cub Scout salute and followed after.

'Take a seat, Booth. Now, this business with Hacker… I hear you're the man to see. What have we got?'

'Well sir, I've got two letters from Broadsky, one was slipped under my door at home last night and the other delivered to Hacker thismorning, both unmarked envelopes-' Booth handed them to Cullen- '-same script, matches samples of handwriting we've got on file for Jacob Broadsky. Squints at the lab ID'd the poison in the coffee as thallium, they're still tearing apart the Starbucks down the street as of twenty minutes ago, fourteen other cases reported so far, no fatalities but all in moderate to serious condition at the hospital.'

Booth took a breath and Cullen nodded, frowning at the letters and jotting down a few notes. 'So this was his first contact with you in some time, the letter under your door.'

'I'd say his first contact with me was the night before last, when he took my partner.'

Cullen actually looked up, Booth had spoken in the tone of a man barely holding his emotions in. The agent seemed to be almost vibrating with it. 'Your partner. Uh, Brennan, right?'

'Yes. Sir.' Cullen waved his hand for Booth to continue. Booth seemed to be restraining himself- as though if he started to talk, he'd launch into a tirade and lose it. Booth breathed deeply again. 'Two nights ago, he broke into her apartment, she sustained an injury and was taken by Broadsky out the window. The place has been swept by two forensic teams, our and the lab's and we've got Broadsky's prints and DNA samples.'

Cullen raised an eyebrow. 'And your partner?'

'Gone.'

'I see.' Cullen watched Booth continue taking deep, measured breaths, fighting to stay in control. 'And you have suspicions as to… why Broadsky targeted these two particular people.'

Booth nodded, seemingly relieved to talk about something else, where he was more in control. 'Yeah. Dr Sweets, actually, he's with me on this… Broadsky, I've been on him for months now, he really got my attention with pulling arbitrary murders right under my nose like a bloody mercenary, and I've been trying to bring the son of a bitch in. I served with him in the armed forces, he… he's a great sniper, one of the best. But now, me and him, we're on different teams. So now he's going after me.'

'What, has he threatened you? Are the messages supposed to be for you?'

'Yeah, sir, I think they are. 'For the greater good', that's sort of a motto of his, how he justifies his actions.'

'What about the other one—the one delivered to Hacker? What's that supposed to mean?'

Cullen noticed Booth's knuckles turn white, but he spoke quite softly. 'I uh…. I know that was delivered…. to Hacker, but I don't think it was in reference to Hacker being poisoned.'

'That's rather random then, don't you think?'

'I think it's very specific. I think it's his reason for taking Bones.'

Cullen frowned and waited for him to continue.

'"_For using your brains."_ The first note wasn't in reference to just Bones but his whole ideology, but the second note… He took my _partner_… because she's smart. She could catch him from something as plain as a chunk of bleached old bone, I might be the one to pull the trigger but, we work as a team, we need each other. He took my right hand. Because he knew how much I need her…. to uh, work with. He's taunting me now to try and catch him without her.'

Cullen nodded and his desk phone rang. He held up a finger to indicate he'd just be a moment and listened to the caller, thanked him and hung up. 'That was forensics. They've tested everything down at the Starbucks and the poison was in a new bottle of hazelnut liqueur, just opened thismorning. So what's your theory on the other- well- it's up to sixteen other cases now, of people who got poisoned? How about Hacker—if there are likely to be more attacks on FBI staff, we need to know about it, Booth.'

'Look, there might be. If I know Broadsky, he doesn't shy away from collateral damage, a few extra lives aren't a big deal if he achieves his objective. Honestly, I don't know why he hasn't come directly after me, but he seems to be focussing on the people around me.'

'He's drawing you out, wants you to come to him.'

'He's definitely after something from me. I can't make any guarantees about the safety of the people I know…'

'Yes, I've heard you had your son and his mother taken in…'

'I did, sir. There's a protective detail at the lab as of 10am, since the rest of the squints are potential targets. I'd like something done for Sweets, too, I'll chat to him about that today…'

'But this attack on Hacker, it did seem very… specific. I'm most concerned about the nature of the attack-'

The phone rang again and Cullen picked it up. 'Cullen. Yes…. Ah. Right, thank you. Good.' He hung up. 'That was Bill from First Aid, they've got more information out of the secretary. Apparently she spoke to a man matching Broadsky's description at the Starbucks on two occasions over the last fortnight, and mentioned Hacker's favourite coffeewas a hazelnut latte…' He shook his head. 'The people we hire, I don't know… So. Booth. What's your strategy?'

'Uh, I'm going to try to contact Broadsky, get him to talk to me. Figure out what he wants… give it to him in exchange for Bones.'

'Sounds like a plan. However I have some unfortunate news for you though, Booth… If there's a sociopath targeting anyone who's after him, our whole agency is compromised, because of you. It's nothing personal, but with funding cuts, and with Hacker out, we need to close ranks.'

Booth frowned. 'I'm not sure what you mean, sir.'

'You're fired.'

**A/N wow so another cliffy! It'll work out okay in the end, don't panic :o) So yeah, if you liked it please leave me a review cos they're so much fun to get, hehe. I try and be good and review when I read stories so spread the love :op Will post again soon!**


	6. Chapter 6

'I'm _what?_'

Cullen held up a hand to stop Booth's protests. '_Officially_. No, this is going somewhere. Hang on a minute. We're going to publish a statement that you've been let go for… uh, we'll make something up, um, you've… proved to be a liability and have compromised the agency in your handling of the Broadsky case. We'll- _officially-_ put, uh, Stennings on it.'

'_Stennings?_'

'Yeah.'

'He's got the lowest close rate in the whole Bureau! He's only still employed because he brings his Swiss coffee machine and makes free cappuccinos for everyone on the 3rd floor!'

'Exactly. Broadsky will laugh and, just like we want, he'll be off our case. You, however, will disappear. You'll be replaced, I think, with that promising new agent you've been working with, Genevieve Shaw.'

'…uh, okay…'

'She'll be holed up for the next few months with a complete system overhaul. You know, fix up the mess you left behind, never see the light of day, lots of paperwork…'

'Gee, thanks.'

'In actuality, she'll be assisting you.'

'Right, so what am I doing again?'

'You'll be re-hired under our Covert Operations Unit. We'll stage the resignation- you can say it was a mutual decision if you like, a bit of ill-will between us wouldn't hurt. What's actually happening will all be classified, of course. The other agents will think it was legit, just you and Shaw's immediate team will know about it.'

'Hah. Well I guess I'll see who my real friends are then. So Covert Operations, then…'

'Mm. You'll essentially go AWOL, hunting Broadsky on your own. The difference being that you actually have FBI resources at your disposal—whatever you need. Gives you freedom to move fast without going through all the bureaucratic bullcrap- more resources, fewer questions, less paperwork. We want him brought in. You're heading this mission.'

'Right. Uh, that sounds good.'

'Course you'll have to clean out your desk.'

'I knew there was a catch.'

'You'll need to go down to the first floor and ask for John Stanley.'

Booth raised an eyebrow.

'Head of COU. You'll be listed on their records under a code name. You get to pick your own.'

Booth's mouth quirked up into a half-smile. 'Really.'

'Just don't make it… "Hot Rod" or "10 Inches" or something. That just makes you look like an idiot.'

'Wouldn't dream of it.'

'That means "Cocky" is out too, and don't look at me all innocent like that. I share a water cooler. You look much too happy about this, should I phone them and suggest "Cupcake"?'

'No, I got it.'

'Okay then. Well, Mr Booth, your termination is effective immediately. You've got until 5pm to clean out your office, turn in your badge, gun and car—'

'Whoa! -hang on, my _gun_? The car—'

'—Will be reassigned to the new agent-in-charge, old Stennings—'

'Man, I knew this was a bad idea…'

'—and you'll have to put up with the new car they give you. Or get rentals. You'll have a company credit card, no limit, though we do require you to account for all expenditure…'

'Huh, well, if you insist…'

'Your firearm will go back into the company stores and be conveniently misplaced, you will pick it up from Stanley after 24 hours, along with any other equipment you require.'

'You sound like you've done this before.'

'Never on record, so it doesn't count. Anything else I've missed?'

'Uh, just a couple of things—I'll still be able to work with the Jeffersonian, right, with my partner gone I'll need all the forensics stuff.'

'That shouldn't be a problem.'

'Right. Also, I'm going to need Sweets and… Caroline Julian to be in on this, ten to one I'll need Caroline's expertise on something…'

'Fine. I'm really going to have to end this meeting, Booth, you'll be briefed in full downstairs. Looks like I have my 2 o'clock waiting, so if you'll excuse me.'

Booth got up, taking Broadsky's letters and left the office, only to come face-to-face with a rather irate Caroline Julian.

'You've got some explaining to do, Cherie, I've just been told that you're going into early retirement—'

'Take it up with Cullen,' said Booth, suppressing a smirk at the thought of Caroline giving Cullen a sound dressing-down. He trekked back through Cullen's waiting room, sensing a few pairs of eyes on him (_Damn, news travels fast_) and took the elevator to the first floor.

He was a bit surprised that there was something as important as Covert Operations on this level, it was supposed to be full of cleaning supplies and have two troublesome broken toilets, which meant half the space was closed off for indefinite repairs. Now that he thought about it, that actually made quite a lot of sense…

He walked up to the cleaners' counter, where a squat middle-aged woman was gossiping on the phone. 'And she said _in_ _three weeks_. That's when she found out. How you wouldn't figure it out before you were practically in the maternity ward I'll never know- Stacey, I'll have to call you back.' She put down the phone and looked expectantly at Booth.

'Uh… I've been told to ask for Stanley,' said Booth. The woman looked at him for a moment before unlatching a swinging door to let him in behind the counter. 'Um, thanks.' He squeezed through and followed as she trotted off down the corridor leading to the cleaning supplies storerooms. It was a real little labyrinth- Booth was wondering if there were any cleaning supplies at all. Finally the woman opened a door covered in memos and peeling notice boards. She sat down at a desk stacked high with piles of reports and indicated Booth to take a seat.

'I'm Debbie. Stanley will be here any—oh, here he is.'

A very short, stocky and grumpy looking man shuffled in and pulled up a seat next to Booth. 'Right, you're Booth,' he said in a gravelly voice that reminded Booth of a toad. 'Things are a bit radio-silent down here, so I'll need you to sign these forms, just a liability clause if you disclose any unauthorised information… thank you… and a signature on this one, too… standard F-97 form… and this one here, we'll email you the fine print but we have to get this processed today. Now if you'll hand in your badge and weapon here, we'll get those processed and back to you by tomorrow.'

Booth handed them over.

'You can drop the car off tomorrow. We can sign you out a similar car… different colour, slightly smaller model but still has 4-wheel drive, here's the papers, if you can return those filled out by tomorrow. Now, I'll give you this phone, new sim-card, a bit harder to trace in case Broadsky has your number, to be used only in relation to this case for security. Obviously after tomorrow you won't be able to come to the Hoover, so you'll be dealing with us remotely anytime you need equipment or to contact your team. There's some policies and procedures there for you to look through, and we'll be leaving most of the operation to your discretion. Any questions?'

'Uh, no, that's all good. You're sure I can't just keep my gun?... Yeah, that's what I thought, had to ask.'

'Good, we're done then. See you tomorrow.'

Stanley got up and shuffled out, and Debbie shook Booth's hand. 'Welcome to the COU. We just a code name to list you under on our records then and we're all sorted, if you don't have one we can assign—'

'No, that's okay,' said Booth, thinking of "Cupcake". Debbie looked at him expectantly with her pen ready. 'Put me down as "Jupiter".'


	7. Chapter 7

By 11.00 on Friday night Booth had sorted out everything at the Hoover and was packed in his new SUV with his old gun, a high-powered rifle and more army rations than he'd ever wanted to lay eyes on. He took some comfort in that- he was kitted up to leave at a moment's notice. His shameful redundancy-slash-resignation was splashed all over the day's newspapers, complete with a photo some journo had snapped of him leaving the Hoover with a box in his arms. He was all too happy to fall off the radar after that.

Genevieve Shaw had been issued a phone with a new simcard to call him directly. Booth knew going off the radar and dropping the FBI would stop more agents being targeted by Broadsky, and maybe was the best way to find him in the long run, but the couple of hours he'd spent cooped up in the Hoover dealing with Hacker and Cullen, instead of hunting Broadsky had just about killed him. Bones had now been gone for around 72 hours and while he had no choice but to cooperate with the FBI to secure the help he needed, every minute grated on him.

Booth had every file in the whole damn FBI that made so much as a passing mention to the sniper. There were no recent sightings of him. A total of eight victims were recorded- Booth suspected there were others that the Bureau didn't yet know about. Twenty-three names were listed who knew old Jake from the army, had hired his services for an assassination or had come out of the woodworks in previous investigations. Three on the list were now dead. Eleven were in the DC area, and Booth chased down every one of them, Genevieve Shaw and her team co-ordinating the search from the office so he could move quickly.

Six men he'd questioned, who'd served together in the old army days knew him but hadn't caught a whiff of him in years. Nine people were in prison, mostly ones who had hired his services and a couple of crooks who'd just crossed paths, and Booth visited five of them in person and interrogated the other four over the phone in other cities. He'd travel there in person later, but was pretty sure none of them would be any use. To see the rest he'd have to wait until morning.

With no successful leads, now late on a Sunday night, Booth found himself driving to the diner. He gripped the steering wheel, going over in his mind all the dead ends he'd run up against. He needed to get to Bones- and to do that, he needed Broadsky. That meant, either Booth finding Broadsky, or Broadsky finding him.

Determining to make himself as visible as possible, he settled into his usual seat next to the window and opened the blinds all the way. He ordered a coffee from the waitress and found himself staring at the seat across from him, where any day of the week, _she_ would have been sitting, making a terrible joke or gazing at him with those deep blue eyes.

'Booth?'

Booth looked up to see Angela making her way towards him. He gave her a smile, somewhat hollow, as she manoeuvred into Brennan's seat. 'Hey Angela. How's stuff going at the lab?'

'Ah, not much to report. Hodgins went back to search Brennan's apartment, just in case there was some evidence he missed… we came up empty. I hope you're having better luck.'

'Not so much. Genny Shaw's got feelers out and I've contacted names who might move in the same circles but no bites. I can chase down sources all day tomorrow, but to be honest, they're a long shot. I've started with the most likely leads... There's one other guy, Leisinger who might be worth a chat but Broadsky knows I'm looking for him… My gut tells me that when he's ready, he's going to make a move and contact me. And all I can do it watch and wait.'

Angela nodded and pulled a newspaper out of her bag. 'I'm guessing you haven't seen this, then.'

Booth took the paper, which Angela had folded over to page 10, where a small text article read 'High-profile Author and Scientist Missing'.

'_Dr Temperance Brennan, celebrated Forensic Anthropologist and best-selling crime novelist has been reported missing from her DC Apartment building since Tuesday. _

'_I wasn't sure what to think when I saw the FBI on our floor, but it was pretty clear that something had happened in her apartment,' says a female resident of the same building complex. 'I went over to see what was going on and was asked the last time I'd seen her. I wasn't able to help much, she works pretty long hours but it's scary when it happens in your building, you know?'_

_Any information about her whereabouts should be forwarded to the police.'_

Booth put the paper down and looked at Angela with hollow eyes. 'Yeah… that's, that's good. To tell people to look.' He swallowed, and took a gulp of coffee to compose himself. 'Obviously no one's called, or Shaw would have let me know right away.'

Angela nodded. She seemed to be beyond crying. Booth wondered how much of it she'd done in the last two days. 'Yeah. I guess that means she… she's not around.'

Booth ordered a burger and pie, Angela said she'd already eaten but ordered a sandwich anyway. They chatted quietly for another half an hour, filling each other in on their respective efforts. Angela had been working with Sweets making a visual suspect board with photos and details of all his victims, looking for patterns, but there was nothing Booth didn't already know. Hodgins and two of the squinterns had gone over old cases from bone storage and all the previous case notes involving him, and Hodgins and Cam had gone out to the previous crime scenes, not that there was any evidence left after so many months, just to get a sense of the places he was likely to go… The most common denominator they had come up with was 'rural', big remote areas of land, but even that wasn't entirely consistent with his kills. Of course, he FBI had scoured Broadsky's properties days ago, finding no trace of him or his firearms. Wherever he was now, it was likely to be remote and out of town… and equally likely to be in a crowded place. And even then, he might want to shake up his MO and send them in the wrong direction.

What Booth needed to know was what Broadsky _wanted_. And he had a feeling that no amount of reconnaissance work was going to tell him that.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N**

**Hey everyone! A few people have been asking when we'll see Brennan so I thought I'd post a note about it :o) The answer is… yes we definitely will but not for a while. There are a few mysteries and surprises in store so I won't ruin anything, but I will say that what happens to Brennan will come into the story in a big way. Hopefully you'll still find it exciting even with just Booth for the first part (and how could Booth not be exciting? drool.) I'm up to about 25,000 words (crazy, right? Plus, in like, 3 days. **_**That never happens.**_**) Just wanted to thank you guys for chatting to me it makes it a lot more fun to write when people say they're enjoying it :o) I wrote a chapter with Parker in it last night, that's a little further on but it's coming up :o) Anyway, enough of that, here's Chapter 8!**

Booth woke with a start on Monday morning to his cell phone going off.

'Booth.'

'This is Agent Shaw… A body's been found.'

The victim's name was Leisinger. He couldn't have been dead more than 12 hours. In the middle of a field on his property, some trespassing hikers had called it in.

Booth stood over the body with a team of local cops and forensics guys. He'd been shot at close range, and Booth felt hate course through him. Broadsky killed in cold blood. This guy was an ex-ranger, too, and Booth himself had questioned him 18 hours ago. He'd denied having any contact with Broadsky. He'd have been better off admitting that he did and coming into protective custody.

Booth's old cell rang. He picked it up on the fifth ring, calling out the number to one of the techs before he answered. 'Booth.'

'You found your present did you, Seeley?'

Booth wildly scanned the area, looking for any sign of Broadsky. There was nothing but trees, scrub, grass…

'Tell me what you want, Jacob,' Booth said, his tone deadly calm. 'I'll give you what you want. And you will give me back my partner.'

'What I want?' said the voice on the line. 'That's not what this is about.'

'How about you fill me in.'

'You're on the wrong team, Seeley. You've been trying to bring me in. A talented sniper like you?—that's a terrible thing to waste. So much potential. I want you to work for me.'

Booth swallowed a lump in his throat. 'Work for you.'

'It doesn't have to be this way, Seeley. We could go far together.'

'You've killed people, Broadsky. No judge, no jury. Just you making the call.'

'I do good work, Seeley. My conscience is clear.'

'You're drunk on the power trip. Innocent people are getting hurt. I can't let that happen.'

'Collateral damage. It's for the greater good.'

'What are you after? What are you trying to do?'

'Me? I'm just a simple old man, trying to make a difference in the world. The justice system is flawed. I need free reign to do my work, and you're either with me or against me.'

'Give me back my partner. If you want money…'

'I don't want money. I respect you, Seeley. Talent like yours is a terrible thing to waste, and I think that in time, you'll make the same realisation I did, about the way the world works, and come to work alongside me. Until that time, I can't let you keep chasing me.'

'Why did you take her? She's done nothing to you. You went after her and…. Is she alive? _Tell me where she is_.'

'Relax, Seeley. You can have your scientist back when she's ready.'

'When she's _ready_?'

'When I'm done with her. See, I'm not _vengeful_ toward you. I'm not going to kill her. I'm just going to stop her from chasing after me anymore. You can't beat me, Booth. You're going to realise that, one way or another.'

'I'm gonna ask you once, and you're going to tell me. _Where. Is. My partner._'

'Where? Well…. That's quite the philosophical question. Where are any of us? Are we in our bodies? Are we in our minds? You'll get her back, but she's not going to be helping you solve any more 'crimes', as you call them. You should have used your own brains, Booth. Now you'll be responsible for destroying hers.'

'DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH HER, YOU SON OF A BITCH! GIVE ME BACK MY PARTNER!'

And the line went dead.


	9. Chapter 9

Booth wanted to shoot something. Repeatedly. Himself even. Beat something into a pulp. People were moving around him, shouting out to each other and placing phone calls, talking to him, wanting to know what happened, but Booth was barely aware of them. It was like the world had stopped. His eyes weren't focusing, everything nearby was a blur. He gripped the phone in his hand, the slow _beep, beep, beep_ of the engaged tone still ringing in his ears.

Gradually he got his bearings back, and started to shout orders, even though the cops around him were already working. The guys who'd taken down the number were now trying to call it, but Booth knew it was no use. Broadsky wasn't going to pick up, in fact it was unlikely he'd even keep the phone on him as it could be traced.

Booth dialled Angela's cell.

'Hello?'

'Angela. I need you to track this phone—hey, can I have the number—thanks….' Booth took the notepad from one of the cops and read it out to Angela.

'Okay, I'll get onto that. Whose is it?... Booth? Is it Broadsky?'

Booth suddenly felt sick. Two seconds ago he was ready to kill a man with his bare hands and now he wanted to throw up. 'Yeah, it was.'

'Oh my gosh… did—did he say anything about Brennan?'

Booth couldn't bring himself to repeat the cryptic comments Broadsky had made about his partner. Deciding to go with what he knew, the facts, he choked out, 'She's alive.'

Angela was quiet on the line for a moment, then said thickly, 'Yeah I, I'll go trace that phone. Call you back.'

''Kay.'

Next Booth called Genny. 'Shaw,' she picked up.

'It's Booth. I'm getting a trace on Broadsky's cell, I'd like backup, two teams to get out there and corner him off.'

'Okay, I'm on it. Call me back with the location.'

Booth jogged to his new SUV, went through the boot to double-check he had everything packed, although he knew he did, just for something to do, then started pacing the perimeter of the crime scene. The cops kept working, letting him do his thing. The techs were packing up Leisinger's remains to be taken to the Jeffersonian, where Cam would perform the autopsy. Not Bones. _Cos there's flesh_, Booth told himself firmly. _That's why._

Fifteen minutes later, Booth's phone rang and he picked up immediately.

'It's Angela, I've got a location.'

Booth sprang into action, adrenaline pumping. _Adrenaline secreting_, he could imagine Bones say. He put his phone onto speaker and dropped it into the console, flicked on the GPS and pulled onto the road.

'So it's about 60 miles south. Booth, he's going to be long gone…'

Leisinger had been found 8 miles outside D.C. on a big property so Booth had to go on unsealed roads for a while.

'What's the nearest police station? Call Agent Shaw, give her the details you just gave me and tell her to contact the nearest cop shop.'

As the car sidled up to the shoulder of the highway, Angela hung up. Booth programmed the location into the GPS and turned on the siren.

'_Keep on this road for the next 10 miles, then, take the third exit,_' said the machine. Booth exhaled a long breath, remembering a conversation he'd had with Bones less than a week ago.

'_And then it told me to 'kayak across the Pacific Ocean'! This 'get directions' function seems to be very rudimentary. I mean you would need a much larger vessel to make such a long journey, not to mention that it would take weeks, possibly months to—'_

'_It's a joke, Bones. Parker told me there's another one that says 'swim across the Atlantic'. They're meant to be funny.'_

'Ohh!_ That _is_ funny! That would be like, slithering across the ground like a snake instead of walking. Hah! You—you would be very good at that, you have excellent musculature in your—'_

'_It's okay, Bones. No one's going to actually slither like a snake or kayak the open sea.'_

'_I… I think it would be fun to kayak on the open sea. With a larger vessel nearby for safety reasons, of course. I mean, the ocean's so big, it would be scary, but… but also pretty wonderful… don't you think?' She had turned those guileless blue eyes on him and even though they were on the road, he'd held her gaze._

'_Yeah, Bones, that would be fun,' he'd said. But he didn't think they were talking about kayaking anymore._

Booth sped down the highway, passing other cars in a blur, thankful he'd commandeered the siren and lights from his old SUV. He wasn't strictly sure he was meant to have them, but no way was he going to waste time in traffic when he was trying to get to Bones.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N Okay, so, confession…. I have no idea of what is actually 60 miles south of D.C. …. I live in Australia… I'm totally winging it here. I looked up DC on google maps (as you might have deduced from last chapter…haha) and I'm like WHERE'S THE BUSH? It's all populated. Down here it's like, Brisbane, 500km of nothing, a tree, some cows, little town, more trees, Sydney. So I'm gonna just screw it and make locations and stuff up :o) But I DID say miles instead of kilometres so I'm **_**kinda**_** making the effort. I'm afraid I'm gonna keep on spelling 'colour' with a 'u' and 'mum' with a 'u' and 'metre' with 're' instead of 'er', sorry :o) We're all topsy-turvy down here :o) But enough rambling, on with the story!**

The afternoon sun beat down and Booth cranked up the air-con as he sped down the highway. He wondered if Bones was suffering in the heat, or maybe locked up in an air-conditioned holding cell… He just hoped to hell that wherever this phone was, she was nearby. He would search every inch of ground until he found her.

Agent Shaw called him back and he accepted the call. 'Hey, what have you got?'

'I've contacted the police in the area, they're on the lookout for a man matching Broadsky's description and they're asking the local media to put it on the air. Brennan's name and description is being put out too, in case she's been seen. The cops are on their way to the phone's location, town cemetery, they should be about 30 minutes. How far away are you?'

'I'm about 30 minutes too. Are you still sending backup?'

'They dispatched as soon as I got the coordinates. We'll get this son of a bitch, Mr Booth.'

'Yeah, thanks, and good work, Genny. How's my office?'

'I'm keeping everything as it was, sir, as much as possible. Hopefully you'll be back soon and I'll be out of your way.'

'No, you're doing a great job. I appreciate it. Hey, I'll give you another call when I have something.'

'Okay, good luck.'

Booth ended the call and sped on.

Twenty-eight minutes later and he was '_turning right, at the next intersection_'. The Lincoln Street Cemetery loomed ahead and he turned the siren off. He dialled Angela.

'Hey, it's me. I'm at the cemetery. Can you get me any closer?'

Angela pulled up the screen. 'Okay, I can see you, zooming in… You need to go west a few hundred feet.'

'West,' Booth repeated, turning the vehicle down a narrow lane through the gravesites.

'Booth, you don't think that- I mean, being at a cemetery…'

'Bones is alive,' said Booth firmly. He had to make himself believe it. He'd believe it right to the end, even if it felt hollow. Considering the alternative was not an option. Giving up was not an option.

'Okay, at the end of that lane, veer left.'

Booth spun the steering wheel and cruised in that direction.

'You're nearly there. I can't zoom in any closer, but I'd pull over right there.'

Booth killed the engine and climbed out, scanning around him for Broadsky, or anyone else for that matter. He pressed the phone to his ear with a little more force than necessary and circled the car, looking for anything that stood out—flowers on a grave, fresh earth, footprints, LED light like a phone might emit.

'Should've brought my metal detector,' he muttered into the phone.

'Oh I don't know,' said Angela, 'I think they're mostly plastic, really…'

A cop car, that had obviously spotted Booth, drove up behind the SUV. Three officers got out and Booth waved them over.

'How am I going, Ange?'

'You're moving away from it… turn around and go a bit to your right.'

The cops met up with Booth, who told them, 'Looking for a cell phone. Still switched on, if you find it don't touch it and call me over.' The men moved off between the grave stones, one of them scanning with a metal detector (Booth wondered if he should borrow it). He stayed on the line with Angela, but she wasn't able to help him much more as his signal and Broadsky's appeared right on top of each other on her map.

After about an hour, Booth was wondering if there was a phone at all, or if Broadsky had pulled one over on them. They had maybe two hours of daylight left. He'd stay there all night if he had to, but he just wanted to find the damn thing. He hadn't even stopped to eat since breakfast. At last the cop with the metal detector (of course) yelled he'd found something and Booth jogged over.

'This look like the one, then?'

Booth knelt down to where a small black object had fallen down a crack between a grave and its headstone. Pulling out an evidence bag, because it felt like a sacred duty that _someone_ should do, he picked it up through the plastic and sealed the bag. 'How fast can you get this dusted for prints?'

'Give us five, there's a kit in the car.'

Booth handed the bag over and began examining the tombstone, trying to work out where Broadsky might have stood, what he might have looked at, why he'd chosen this place, knowing Booth would follow. The grave was very old, and had a barely legible inscription. Booth knelt down and brushed dirt out of the words to read them. It said 'Jane Doe – 1911~1934'.

Booth stared at it, conflicted. Jane Doe. A nobody. There had to be significance there. Bones had restored the identities of hundreds of Jane Does in her time at the Jeffersonian, giving them a voice, a story, a name. Her mother had even been one of them. A Jane Doe… someone without a family, no one to identify them, to know they were missing, to go find them… Bones was a sort of Jane Doe, orphaned as a child and abandoned, left friendless and alone for half her life. Booth started examining the grave, circling it, getting on his hands and knees to examine the grass around it. There had to be evidence. What would Bones do? He remembered that high-pitched intern Daisy effusing about smart Dr Brennan was, and asking herself 'What would Doctor Brennan do' when she worked on cases. Booth smiled at the thought of Bones squatting down in her blue jumpsuit, ponytail swinging as she made scrunchy faces at bones and managed to offend all the local officers by misunderstanding them or being too blunt. How he loved it when she did that, and would be the only one to laugh, and that would somehow smooth everything over and he'd get to leave with an arm around her waist, while everyone else looked on slightly confused. They had their own language, him and Bones. And right now, right here, he needed her.

Broadsky had been right about one thing— without Brennan, it would be a hell of a job to track Broadsky down.


	11. Chapter 11

A/N Hey everyone, sorry for the wait. Real life got in the way for a bit :o( Without further ado, here's chapter 11 :o)

The local police got a couple of prints off the phone, and they were a match. Broadsky must have been here, or very nearby when he made the call. But it was now 5pm, and dusk was falling, and the officers were packing it in for the night.

Booth followed them back to the station, ducking into the take-away next door for a burger. Two, actually. He was famished. He took out Brennan's laptop, which he had packed because it had a faster connection to the Jeffersonian than his, and because he knew he could guess her password. He'd typed in lots of things – delphinius, phalanges, maluku, tofu… but in the end he found it was 'Parker'. This obliterated the tiny pang of guilt he'd felt in taking it without her knowledge, but also made him feel so churned up he was unable to focus on anything for a good ten minutes.

Finally he skyped Cam, who was still at the lab in the middle of Leisinger's autopsy.

'Hi, Booth,' she said, snapping off her gloves and looking down into the camera.

'Hey.'

'I guess you found the phone?'

'Yeah, tell Angela again thanks for that. Got his prints, but looks like another dead end…'

'Really? I'm so sorry, Seeley. Where exactly was it?'

Booth didn't know if there was much point mentioning the grave, but remembering Cam's pep talk about being thorough and finding all the evidence, he described the tombstone, down to the fact he'd stared at the grass and soil around it for an hour, and his theory that there might be more to it than coincidence.

'I'll send down Hodgins and Sweets in the morning. We should follow up every lead, and your gut is usually right about things like this. If you've missed anything Hodgins will find it, and Sweets will probably pull out some shrinky mumbo-jumbo. Worth a shot.'

'Great. I'll get the guys here looking into the history of that grave, see if we can find anything that stands out.'

'How many people on the FBI's list have you got left to find?'

'Four follow-ups in a couple of prisons, and five I haven't contacted at all. Wish Leisinger had talked.'

'Well Broadsky, he covered a lot of ground in one day… he's probably long gone from the cemetery. What's your next move?'

'Hang on a minute Cam, one of the guys is waving for me, I'll be right back.'

'Booth I'm kind of busy—aaand he's gone,' said Cam to the empty screen.

The cop (the one with the metal detector, he was having all the luck) was putting the phone down. 'Agent Booth we just had a sighting of a man matching the description we put out on the radio and tv. He was driving a tan Jeep, went into a drive-thru and was caught on security camera. They're just emailing us the recording.'

Booth planted his hands on the desk and leaned down to watch the footage. It was a little pixelated, but half-a-dozen frames showed a clear image of Broadsky's face.

'Can you send that file to me? And also to this address… that's our imaging specialist,' said Booth, jotting down his address and Angela's. 'I'm pretty confident that this is Broadsky but I want to be absolutely sure. When was this taken?'

'Around 3pm. The kid who reported it served the guy, then saw his picture on the news. He waited til his shift ended to re-run the tape and phone it in.'

'Couldn't have done it sooner, he's got four hours on us…' said one of the other cops.

'At least it's something. Pull up a map of the area with the restaurant marked in, will ya? Cam,' Booth said, sitting down in front of the laptop. 'We've got a probable sighting. Is Angela still there?'

'She's gone home, but she can analyse the footage on her home computer. I'm giving her a call now,' said Cam, who'd managed to hear most of the conversation from Booth's end.

'Great. Thanks Cam.' Booth waited while Cam phoned Ange, pulling up his email in another window to play the recording again.

'…. Thank-you Angela... I'll tell him. Okay bye.' Cam hung up. 'Okay, she's looking at it now. She'll run it through the image processing program and send it back to you, and also skype.'

'Okay, that's good.' It was reassuring, having the team back home on side. The squints at the lab were a little different, but Booth felt closer to that group than to most of the other agents. Bones would have a long-winded explanation for it, probably involving the words 'alpha male', of course. He shook the thought from his head. 'How's the autopsy?'

'Oh, nothing we didn't already know… Shot from less than a metre, death would have been instantaneous, if that's at all comforting… He was a smoker, thirty-one, otherwise in good health. Hodgins has been going through the clothing and wallet we found on him. No one seems to have touched the wallet, money's intact and all the cards. We haven't found a motive if that was your next question,' Cam pre-empted. 'He said he didn't know Broadsky when you questioned him yesterday?'

'Well, he either lied, or was very unlucky.'

'I'll say.'

'What about the bullet?'

'We've extracted all the pieces, but we'll have to wait on Angela to reconstruct it. It was just too much for her today, with the baby and worrying about Brennan.'

'It's okay, I get it. I know everyone's doing their best, tell everyone I appreciate it.'

'I'll pass that on. Get some sleep, Seeley. You look like hell.'

'I've got Angela's rendering Cam, and she's on Skype, I'll have to go.'

'Okay. Stay safe, big man.'

Booth ended the call and opened a window for Angela. 'Hey, Booth,' she said. She did look exhausted, Booth thought. He could see an ice pack sitting next to her on the desk. She really was due very soon. 'Okay, so I've rendered the frames, just sent them to you then. Have a look at frames 33 to 41, you get a good glimpse of his face. Comparing it on my image recognition software to his mugshot, I'd say it's a 99 percent match.'

'Good enough for me,' said Booth, poring over the frames.

'I couldn't get a read on the number plate,' Angela continued. 'He was tailing the car in front of him so closely, he must have been in a hurry to get out.'

'I'd say he was just being intimidating,' Booth replied. 'He was here in town until at least three. He cut it fine, but he knew he could get away before we cased the joint.'

'Well while you're at the station, print out these screencaps I've isolated. It might be handy to have them accessible.'

'Great work, Ange. Hey, you take care of yourself, okay?'

Angela rolled her eyes. 'I'm doing fine, thanks. I'm more concerned about you. Get some rest.'

'That's what Cam said. I'll phone the lab tomorrow.'

'Hodgins and Sweets should be there by 9.'

'Good. I'll see you later.'

Angela raised a hand to wave goodbye and they ended the call. He quickly forwarded the details of the sighting to Agent Shaw – he had a couple of missed calls from her and a text saying the two dispatch teams had scouted the area thoroughly both by car and on foot for several hours, but with no success.

Booth glanced at the time. It was already 11.30. He packed up his gear and the officer on night duty gave him a business card for a B&B the receptionist had booked for him. He drove to the hotel feeling his exhaustion, grateful for the GPS so he didn't have to think.

There was a key left under the door mat, and he stumbled into his room, not bothering with a shower. He peeled his jeans off and crawled into bed. He lay awake for just a moment, trying not to think about Bones or he'd never get to sleep. His last thought before he drifted out of consciousness was her password. _Her password was Parker_.


	12. Chapter 12

Booth awoke the next morning still feeling tired. He changed into some gym clothes and went for a run to wake himself up, picking up a coffee and some breakfast on the way back.

He dialled Agent Shaw to catch up with progress at her end. One of the teams had stayed on in town to assist further, the other had returned to D.C. to keep searching from the Hoover. The make and model of his vehicle would be helpful, assuming he didn't change cars, and two of her agents were focussing their efforts today on searching traffic camera footage.

Just after nine Sweets called to ask where they should meet up. Booth said the cemetery, packed his stuff back into the SUV and drove to meet them.

'Booth!' Sweets yelled, waving. Booth cracked a smile- the kid was clearly excited to be on field work.

'This is great, is this really where Broadsky placed his call? There could be any number of reasons he selected a cemetery, and this particular cemetery. Where exactly did you find the phone?'

Hodgins climbed out of the driver's seat with an armload of equipment. 'Hey Booth. Where am I setting up?'

'It was just over here.'

The three men wove their way between the headstones to the Jane Doe grave, and Booth pointed out the spot where the phone was found. 'I've looked all around the grave, but I couldn't find anything unusual,' Booth explained, pointing out the area he'd focussed on. 'So… you two, work your squinty magic.'

Hodgins swung his bag off and got out some tweezers, evidence bags and a magnifying glass, knelt down on the ground and began to search.

'Okay, wow, this site is rich in symbolism, Agent Booth,' Sweets announced. 'Given Broadsky's preoccupation with vigilante justice, as a sniper a graveyard could serve as a warning, or even a threat to you, or it could be a kind of shrine for him celebrating what he considers his righteous work. It could also be a clue and I'm very interested in this, specific grave he chose as the place to leave the phone.'

'He couldn't have just, you know, dumped it on the ground on his way out?' Booth asked sceptically.

'While… that's a possibility, I think we owe it to Dr Brennan to investigate every line of inquiry and every suspicion. I know that _you _thought there was a possible link, or a message in Broadsky's choice of this particular gravesite. Would you like to share what you gut instinct was?'

'"Would I like to share"?' Booth said irritably. 'Look I, I just thought that like you said… we should check out every angle, no matter how small. Just… just do your shrinky, ouiji–board thing and give me something to chase.'

'Okay,' Sweets said, shoving his hands in his pockets. Hodgins grinned up at them in amusement and kept poring over the ground.

'I think, since Broadsky has been focussing on you, Agent Booth, that any message he leaves would be one that _you_ would recognise. Now, given that the reason you are chasing Broadsky is that he's taken Dr Brennan… I think it's likely, he's trying to convince you to give into his demands, specifically that you join with him as a sniper.'

Booth folded his arms and nodded tensely. 'But give me something about the grave, Sweets. What does it mean?'

'What do you think it means?'

Booth kicked at a tuft of grass. 'It's either a reference to... the specific person whose buried there, or… he's making some reference to Bones.'

'By calling her a Jane Doe?'

'Look, _I don't know_, Sweets,' said Booth in frustration. 'I don't know if it means anything at all, it could be a total coincidence. Maybe he _wants_ us to read more into it to get me off his tail. He's all about staying one step ahead. Look, if there's a clue there, it needs to be something that will lead us to him. What have you got, Hodgins?'

'I'm taking some dust from the top of the grave slab, I'll analyse it, see if any particulates can tell us where he's been. That is, assuming the particulates are from him.'

Booth frowned. 'Uh, I stood on the slab yesterday, too, so did one of the cops…'

'Hey, it might be a long shot, but if there's anything there, I'll find it. I'll need your shoes and the other cop's to isolate the anomalous particles.'

Booth pulled off the shoes he was wearing. 'Uh, sure. Dammit, why didn't I think of that yesterday?'

'It's okay, it's really more a scientist thing,' Hodgins assured him. 'You're the cop, remember?'

'Yeah….' said Booth flatly. 'I'm the cop.'

Hodgins set up at the local cop station to run his tests on the soil. Booth sat on the phone with Genny Shaw, trying to plan their next move.

'It's been seven days, already,' Booth said, scrubbing his face over with both hands as he listened to Genny on speakerphone. 'I just… I know she's still alive, I can feel it. I don't think Broadsky lied to me.'

'We'll keep looking until we find her, Agent Booth,' Shaw promised. 'I've sent out a team to re-question everyone on the list you spoke to in the D.C. area. Maybe, now that Leisinger's dead, if any one else was lying they might open up.'

'I can usually tell when someone's lying.'

'Well that's in an interrogation room, Sir,' Genny placated. 'That's a more pressurised situation. You didn't have cause to arrest anyone, you questioned them in their homes…'

'Right,' Booth said flatly.

'How's the FBI team going?'

'I've got them searching traffic feeds too,' Booth said with a shrug. 'There's not a whole lot of cameras down here, they haven't found anything so far…'

Booth got an incoming call. 'Uh, Shaw I've got Cam on the line. I'll talk to you later.'

'That's fine, good luck sir.'

He hung up and answered Cam's call. 'Booth.'

'Hi. How's it going?'

'It's slow work, hopefully we'll get some results. Sweets is going through the public records, births, deaths and marriages, microfilm of old newspapers to get anything on the Jane Doe grave. Hodgins took my shoes.'

'…of course he did,' smiled Cam. 'I've got Angela here, she's reconstructed the bullet.'

Angela appeared beside Cam, holding up an unusually shaped bullet casing. Booth enlarged the window to see it better.

'I've never seen one like this before,' Angela said. I thought it might mean something to you.'

'Yeah,' Booth said without smiling. 'That's a custom bullet. Remember the bullet that killed Heather Taffet? That was also a custom. Broadsky probably makes them himself, wherever he's based these days. This bullet was made specifically for a close-range shot.'

'You mean… well, I guess this proves that Leisinger's death was pre-meditated,' Angela continued.

'It wouldn't have fit the gun he used to kill Taffet. This is from another gun, a high-powered, very expensive firearm.'

'Does it give us motive?' Cam asked from off-screen.

'Only… if the gun _belonged_ to Leisinger,' Booth suggested. 'The size of the shaft… None of Broadsky's FBI cases involved a weapon like that.'

'So wherever Broadsky is now, it's safe to assume he's collected a new toy,' Angela added.

'Could that be motive, Booth- killing Leisinger for his gun?'

'Yeah could be,' said Booth. 'Unless Leisinger was like me- someone Broadsky wanted to recruit who refused. Look, that's good that you figured that stuff out, but Broadsky's out there now… unless it _leads_ us to him…'

'Yeah I know,' said Cam. 'We'll keep looking, something might turn up.'

'Thanks Cam, Ange.' Booth disconnected the call.

Booth hovered around Hodgins most of the afternoon, hassling him for results. Eventually Hodgins told him to go take a walk, so Booth went back to going through the list of people he had yet to question. They lived quite far away, which meant time wasted travelling, and he wanted to make the best possible use of his time by going after the most promising leads first. Was that here? This town, Broadsky's last known location, was also the one place he was the least likely to be. Booth was counting on Hodgins and Sweets finding some evidence.

The police had interviewed the kid who sent in the surveillance footage at the drive-thru. All they found out was that he ordered fries and a chicken burger, and looked 'intimidating'. Since there were no traffic cameras near the fast food place, the Jeep could have gone onto a highway in any direction undetected.

Booth had spent a good hour on Broadsky's used phone, now that the prints had been taken, but it was a cheap throw-away cell and though Booth had got Angela to send him a program to detect hidden information on the simcard, there was nothing except the call to Booth.

That evening Sweets barrelled into the station, his arms full of photocopies and borrowed files about the unnamed woman. He tried to tell Booth all about it, but as the evening wore on to 9.00, the approximate time Brennan had disappeared, Booth found he was just tuning Sweets out. One full week. As much as he tried to push the thought out of his head, he knew that statistically, his chances of finding her were growing slim. She could have been moved multiple times, even if he managed to find another location Broadsky had been. He suddenly felt the weight of finding one single woman- hidden by a man like Broadsky who knew no fear- just one, when there were over six billion people in the world. By now Bones could be just about anywhere.


	13. Chapter 13

Hodgins managed to isolate particulates that might have come from Broadsky's shoes. But they led straight back to Leisinger's property, which they already knew was the last place he'd been. He and Sweets drove back to D.C., Sweets taking his photocopied files with him. The FBI teams, both in the town and back at the Hoover, had come up empty. Booth felt like he was chasing a ghost.

Two days later, Booth was on a road trip to the five remaining people on the list he hadn't questioned, and to see the four in interstate prisons face-to-face. He could have flown, but his gut told him that if he found Broadsky or Bones, he'd need to be able to give chase at any time and have his gear on hand.

It was an exhausting trip, even with the siren on the whole way and some slightly reckless driving. He stopped in at a prison that evening and spoke to two inmates. They were surly and uncooperative, but Booth didn't think they'd had any recent contact so he left it at that. He checked in with the lab every day. Hodgins had been out to Leisinger's crime scene and confirmed that he had at one stage owned a rifle that would fitted the bullet in his skull. Booth took this stoically. He was taking everything stoically. Cam was getting worried about him, his quietness when he called or skyped them. Sweets thought Booth was wrestling with the fact that he could be searching indefinitely.

Two men (who had worked for a remote shipping company with Broadsky eight years ago) and an ex-girlfriend later, Booth had one more name to add to the list, an Alex Brown who Broadsky had known a while ago.

He drove another three states. Another prison. Another dead end. He slept in his car some nights, stayed at motels and B&Bs, and called the COU and Genevieve Shaw's team on alternate days. Angela had nearly dropped from exhaustion, and Hodgins and Cam were insisting she stay at home until further notice, since she'd been working for nearly two solid weeks without a break. Booth called her a couple of times to check in and every time, she seemed more hopeless about recovering her best friend. Booth promised he'd never stop looking.

Descriptions of both Broadsky and Brennan had aired on dozens of radio and tv stations, local and national. Booth made everyone he spoke to swear they would call him if they were at any stage contacted by the rogue sniper, threatening them with legal action if they failed to comply or harboured a known fugitive. He warned all of them about what happened to Leisinger, and was so angry and intimidating that one woman broke down in tears. Booth figured he probably should have felt bad for letting his anger frighten suspects, but he didn't. He just felt numb.

A week and a half later, after searching every town or city where Broadsky was known to have visited in the past, Booth drove home. After 24 eighteen-hour-days in a row, he was physically and emotionally spent. He arrived back at his apartment and slept for two days straight. Cam, Agent Shaw and Angela all tried to get in contact with him. Cam went round and knocked on his door several times, but he ignored them.

Finally, on Saturday night, he called Cam.

'Seeley. Thank goodness. Are you okay?'

'Yeah, I'm…. I'm fine.'

Cam thought even from those few words he sounded the furthest thing from fine, but didn't press it. 'I guess things didn't go so well.'

'You could say that.'

There was a long pause as Booth fell silent and Cam tried to think of what to say.

'You've done the best you could, Seeley. You've covered a lot of ground. We'll keep right on looking. There'll be another lead.'

'Yeah.'

Another heavy silence. 'Look, Booth, why don't you take a day off. Eat a decent meal, have a few beers, see a movie. Go visit Parker, he'll be missing you.'

Booth closed his eyes and groaned. '…Yeah. You're right. I… I've got to be on top of my game. I just… I've slept for two days already, and Broadsky's still out there. I can't stand to be doing nothing…'

Cam noticed how the last few days, Booth had stopped mentioning Brennan entirely. It was like it was just too much. He just talked about finding Broadsky. Cam carefully did the same, not wanting to rock the boat.

'Go to the beach or something,' she told him. 'Go for a run, get some fresh air. You need to take some time to look after yourself, or you'll just—'

'Yeah, I know,' Booth cut her off. 'Look, I will, okay? I'll… I'll do something.'

'Good,' said Cam. The conversation was awkward… both of them knew things were awful, but were trying to stay positive for the other. Cam shut her eyes and took a long exhale. 'I'm going to keep going,' she said finally, 'and yes, I had a day off yesterday, if that's what you were going to say. I'll call you tomorrow, okay?'

'Yeah, fine,' Booth said. 'I'll see you.'

'Bye.'

Booth put his old rotary phone back on the hook and flipped on the tv to a sport channel. He knew he had to get his act together. This was going to be a marathon, not a sprint, and when the time came that he found…. Broadsky, he wanted to be at full capacity. He wasn't doing anyone any favours by going at half-speed.

Although he didn't really need one, he went and took a long hot shower, hoping the scalding water would relieve some of the tension he was carrying. Feeling slightly better, he put on some jeans and a Flyers t-shirt and headed down to the park he usually jogged in.

He called the secure line to the FBI safehouse, letting the agent there know he was visiting and asked to be put through to Rebecca. She sounded alright, and said Parker would love to spend the rest of the day with him. Booth towelled off, deciding to take another shower to clean off the sweat, and drove to a car-park where a driver picked him up and excorted him to the secure location.

Another family was sharing the complex at the moment, the agent explained, they had a fifteen-year-old daughter w had been hanging out with Parker. When Booth walked in Rebecca hugged him firmly, before Parker barrelled up and did his best to knock the three of them over.

'DAD! Dad Dad Dad!' Parker squealed, jumping up and down. 'Dad you're back! Does this mean we get to go home? Hey dad, we've got this HUGE tv, and there's a ping-pong table, and they can get us any movies we like, Mum's just been watching Spy Kids with me, even though it's really for little kids—'

Booth gave the first genuine smile he'd had in weeks. 'That sounds awesome, buddy. How's your schoolwork going?'

Booth shared a grin with Rebecca, who didn't really expect to get a word in for the first half-hour, as Parker dragged him into the living room to show him all the dvds. 'And this one's my favourite! It's the latest X-men movie, even though it says 'first class' it's the fourth one—'

Booth laughed as Parker pulled him into his room. 'And I've got a double bed, and I've tried sleeping in it upside down and if I spread out my arms I can touch both sides, look—'

Rebecca followed them around, enjoying seeing her son so happy. 'There's a really tiny yard, the Agent Fisher says we're supposed to stay indoors most of the time but I've been out here playing marbles and there's this great ten pin bowling set they have, I keep beating mum.'

'Only because you have that other girl on your team, she's been giving you hints!' said Rebecca.

'Really?' grinned Booth. 'A girl, hey? What's her name?'

'It's Lacey and she's in the tenth grade, but she's pretty cool, she plays ping-pong with me and quizzes me on my spelling words.'

'And you played monopoly for _hours_ the other day, remember?' added Rebecca. 'I'm a bit sick of board games, but I was able to write a whole report and email it into work that afternoon.'

'Yeah, and mum's helping my with studying, and sometimes Mr and Mrs Banks come round and help me with math, Mrs Banks is a teacher-'

Booth grinned as the 11-year-old pulled him back into his room and showed him the computer. 'I've got this to do study on, and Dad, I found the coolest thing on youtube, look—it's called the Microwave show, and they do experiments!'

'Experiments,' smiled Booth. 'In a microwave.'

'Yeah!' effused Parker. 'They get all these things that aren't meant to go in the microwave, and they built a lab and do experiments! It's okay, Mum said if I was allowed to watch it I had to promise I wouldn't try it, so I promised. Look at this one, they're microwaving toothpaste! I asked my online teacher if I could use one of them for a science report so I'm doing eggs, cos guess what happens, they blow up! And I did some research and it's because the molecules inside the shell get hot and pressure builds up and the shell has to explode! How cool is that!'

'That's great, buddy,' Booth grinned. Parker's enthusiasm was infectious and Booth chuckled as Parker typed in another video.

'Oh, and Dad! Look at this one, it's my favourite— they microwave _fireworks_! Look, you just have to wait—they all go whizzing around inside the microwave and then they show it again but slower and they're all red, white and blue cos it's for the 4th of July…'

Booth and Parker watched a few videos of things exploding and catching fire in a microwave, Parker commentating loudly over the top, and Rebecca came in with Lacey, mouthing over the kids' heads to Booth 'I think he likes her.'

'Hi Mr Booth,' the girl said, she wasn't much taller than Parker though she was a fair bit more grown-up. Parker told her what they were watching and Lacey seemed quite happy to hang out with him despite the age-difference. As the kids sat glued to the computer, Rebecca chatted to Booth.

'The Banks came here six days ago. They were at a safe house in Pittsburgh but there was a family that needed an emergency short-term stay so they were transferred. They've been in protective custody a week longer than us so both the kids are really happy to have someone other than their parents to hang out with.'

'Yeah I'm glad he's not completely isolated from other kids. Is he missing school?'

'He misses sport and recess and his friends, but he's writing them postcards. Of course he can't actually send them, but he can give them out when we leave. How's the hunt for Broadsky going?'

Booth's expression fell. Rebecca knew what that meant. 'Still nothing? How… Have you found Dr Brennan?'

Booth shook his head a little, glancing at Parker, who was thankfully still engrossed in an imploding tomato.

'Oh.'

Rebecca took him in, now noticing the bags under his eyes, getting a pretty good picture of how things were going. 'Look, you don't need to worry about us. Parker's really resilient, he's taking things in his stride. He boasts about you all the time to Lacey and her parents, and he loves talking to the agents. He's pretty good about school work. There's a treadmill in the games room, so he's always running on that…'

'You holding up?'

'Yeah. Actually it's kind of nice, getting a break from the office. There's a lot of reports I can do from here, and if I was at work I wouldn't have nearly this much time with Parker.'

'Okay. Yeah. That's good.'

Lacey squealed at something on the computer. 'Dad!' yelled Parker in delight. 'They're doing Pikachu now, check it out! Because he's an _electric_ pokemon, get it? And there's electricity in the microwave?'

Booth and Rebecca both laughed and Lacey said something about 'poor Pikachu' but seemed pretty happy. 'Hey come on, you two, I think we're having pizza for dinner,' Rebecca said.

The Banks joined them and everyone was in a good mood having a visitor. Parker alone was so happy that it rubbed off on everyone. They talked around the table, the Banks sharing the story of how they came into protective custody and Lacey and Parker demonstrated a clever rap they'd memorised about placing an order at McDonalds complete with actions which had everyone in tears of laughter.

Parker asked if they could play monopoly and Booth couldn't bring himself to say no, so the six of them split into pairs- Booth with Parker of course, Lacey with Rebecca and the Banks together- and kept going until it was way past Parker's bedtime. Eventually Lacey and Rebecca won (Rebecca decided she didn't dislike monopoly _quite_ so much) and Parker had the quickest shower in the history of time, and asked Booth to tuck him into bed, although he probably was really too old for that sort of thing. The two of them wanted to stretch out every extra minute together, and Parker lay in bed asking Booth when they would see each other next.

'Really soon, I hope buddy,' Booth said.

'Are you going back to look for the bad guy?'

'Yeah,' Booth said. 'I'm going to keep looking until I bring him in, then you and your mum can go home.'

'Can I come over to your place as soon as we get out?'

'I hope so, Parker, but we'll have to wait and see, okay? We'll go to the big game that's coming up, if I've caught the bad guy, or we'll do something really fun like Disneyworld for your birthday.'

'Wow! Can Lacey come too?'

Booth chuckled. 'Sure, if she wants.'

'And Dr Bones?'

Booth looked at Parker for a moment, his bright eyes and huge smile, both of which were probably going to dissolve into tears in a few minutes when Booth had to go.

'Yeah, buddy. She can come too.'

**A/N **

**Booth's attempts to block Brennan out aren't going to last much longer. Tune in for the next exciting episode Let me know what you think!**


	14. Chapter 14

Booth stayed in Parker's room hoping the boy would fall asleep, as it would be less painful if Booth was just gone in the morning than having to say goodbye. But Parker was too excited to sleep, so at 12.30, when Rebecca was looking concerned and gesturing to Booth that Parker really shouldn't be awake, Booth gave his kid a hug and told him to watch lots more microwave videos to tell him about next time. This pleased the 11-year-old enough that Booth was able to give him a quick kiss and hug, say 'I'll see you later, Parks, I love you,' and slip outside without Parker becoming upset.

Booth shook hands with Alf Banks and kissed Rebecca and Ellen Banks on the cheek, asking them to tell Lacey from him it was a pleasure to meet her and thank her for being a friend to Parker. Rebecca escorted him to the door where they exchanged quick goodbyes and the agent on duty chauffeured Booth to his SUV.

He didn't feel tired anymore, probably because of the two days he'd spent in bed, and he found himself driving to Brennan's apartment. He didn't really know why he went there, but he took the elevator rather than the stairs this time and let himself in with his emergency key.

The apartment looked well-kept. He noticed a few dishes he'd seen on the bench the night they searched for her were washed up and put away. Her bin had been taken out, and when he went to get a drink, all the perishable items had been cleaned out of the fridge. Booth figured it was either Hodgins or Angela who'd come around, probably Angela as she was the one with the other spare key. He couldn't help but walk into her bedroom and ensuite, where there had been so much blood. Her bed was made and the skirt and high heels from the floor were put away. The bathroom had been cleaned so that not a trace of blood was left, and Booth checked the balcony to see that it had been cleaned down, too.

Bones' handbag was still on the coffee table, and Booth went over and picked it up, just wanting to hold something of hers. He took out her phone, which now had 27 missed calls, and found himself sitting on the couch going through her bag. A part of him wondered if it was wrong to do this, but he wasn't trying to be nosy. Handling these objects- the bag she carried everyday, touching the smooth leather of her wallet (a pink one, which made him smile), toying with the little plastic skull on her keychain… It felt right to hold these things, and also horrible to know that she was separated from them. That she couldn't just whip out a credit card to pay for something, or call someone, or show her driver's licence to prove her identity.

Booth got up from the couch and wandered over to her bookshelves. He ran the tips of his fingers along the spines, starting at 'Anthropology from Antiquity', by the _American Anthropology Council_ all the way to _Brennan, Temperance_, at the far end. He started to pull out the last volume, knowing that all of them were dedicated to him, but at the last moment pushed it back onto the shelf. He turned to her music shelf, and popped open the cd player, to see a Tibetan Throat Singers recording staring up at him. He smiled, and ran a finger along the cds, noticing the new jazz albums she had. In the middle of the shelf, he saw one album in particular. She still had it.

It was too much. Booth felt his eyes filling, and blinked furiously, staring at the ceiling. He slipped out the front door, testing the handle twice to make sure it was properly locked, and made his way to the swimming pool she'd given him and Parker a key to.

The pool was empty of course, being 2.30 in the morning, and the gently rippling water was lit from beneath, casting dancing reflections on the wall and roof. Booth stripped down to his boxers and waded in, plunging his head under so his tears dispersed into the salt water. He held his breath and swam two laps along the bottom of the pool, then floated on his back, watching the bright patterns cast above him.

How he wanted her to be with him. Wearing some sensible one-piece swimsuit that she made look stunning, playing games and trying to splash him without getting caught. Forcing him, of course, to tackle her and hold her, laughing and squirming in his arms. Eventually she'd stop trying to escape and would wrap her arms and legs around him, rest her head on his shoulder and just let him sway and carry her around the pool.

Booth plunged back under the water again before his fantasy went any further. This wasn't helping. He was only torturing himself. _Stop thinking_, he told himself. _Swim_.

He slowly warmed up as he swam lap after lap. He swam freestyle until he lost count of the laps, did a few laps of breaststroke and some spins under water. The constant motion distracted him from his thoughts and gave him something to focus on, even just the breaths and strokes. Finally he pulled himself out and picked up his clothes, drying himself off on his t-shirt and just putting on his jeans and jacket.

Sleep finally beginning to catch up with him, he made his way down the corridor, deliberately stopping himself from returning to Brennan's apartment, and took the lift to the carpark. The doorman nodded to him as he exited into the crisp night air.

He was glad he'd taken Cam's advice and had a… mental health day, he supposed. He drove back to his apartment and took the stairs up, unlocked his door and went straight to his room, stripping off and falling into bed.

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The next chapter is possibly my favourite so far (it's also a long one), I'll post soon…. Let me know if you liked Booth's night at Brennan's!


	15. Chapter 15

At ten o'clock, Booth was woken by his phone. It was Agent Shaw, asking how he was going. He apologised for not taking her calls and explained where he'd been the last few days. She was glad he was feeling better and suggested they meet up with him somewhere so she could fill him in on what her team had been doing. They agreed on a place a bit out of the way called the Timbers Sports Bar, since Booth couldn't really turn up at the Hoover, to meet at one pm.

Booth got dressed and took a walk around the block to clear his mind.

He carried the memory of his evening at Brennan's pool and apartment quietly. He'd felt… somehow connected to her by going there. It had been a cathartic release, he decided, to shed tears he'd been holding in for weeks. Swimming in the salt water and imagining her there with him had been so easy. He'd faced up to something deep in himself that night, something he couldn't really describe. And he felt her absence even more strongly.

Feeling somewhat numb, he got in the SUV and headed over to the tavern. Genevieve found him at the bar ordering a Long Walk off a Short Pier, and placed her files beside him on the bench.

'It's good to see you back, Agent Booth,' she greeted. She shook Booth's hand as she took a seat. 'I've uh, got transcripts of the second questionings of the D.C. area contacts, we recorded them for you. I'm pretty sure none of them are really in contact with our guy any more but I thought you might like them anyway.'

'Yeah, thanks, that's great,' said Booth, trying to sound encouraging and rather failing at it.

'I've got reports from the agents who were searching the traffic feeds, they've done the whole D.C. area going back to a week before the kidnapping. We have some blurred footage of a vehicle that _might_ be a match not far from the Hoover, that was four weeks ago, sir.' She pulled out a handful of pixelated photographs and gave them to him.

'Okay, I'll uh, send that over to Angela, see what she thinks.'

'I'm sorry we haven't found more, Agent Booth. We've been really thorough, but this guy's slippery. He knows how to disappear. I just… I don't know what else we can do.'

Booth downed the rest of his drink and signalled the bartender to bring him another one of the same. 'That's… that's good work, Shaw. You've been great, really.'

'We've uh, been asked to start working on other cases too, sir,' Genny said hesitantly. 'Deputy Director Hacker is back from the hospital, there have been no disturbances or security breaches since you left… Of course Cullen is happy for you to stay on COU for as long as it takes, and we'd drop whatever we were doing at a moment's notice if you found anything…'

'Yeah, I get it, I appreciate that,' Booth said, nursing his drink. 'Thanks, Genevieve. You've done a great job, you've been a real asset on this case.'

She nodded quietly and packed all the files into the folder, sliding it across to him. 'Well, this is for you. If you think of anything else I can help with, any other leads just call.'

'I'll do that. You take care.'

'Thank-you sir. And… I'll call you if I find anything at all.'

She slung her bag over her shoulder, slipped some money onto the counter for her drink and left.

Booth sat there for a while longer, staring at the sports channel on the tv without actually taking it in. He waited while the ice cubes in his glass melted, tracing lines in the condensation and eating a few peanuts. Finally he slammed the rest of the drink down, and took a walk to nowhere in particular.

He left the car parked outside the tavern and wandered toward a busy little shopping mall. It was a nice area with a beachy feel to it, palm trees towering out of landscaped gardens and traffic islands, and as he turned into the mall, a large fountain featuring a statue of a mermaid sprayed water in a great arc.

A few kids too young to be in school ambled around clutching their mothers' hands, and a group of senior citizens on a day trip made their way past, two of the old men roaring with laughter and pointing at things with their canes.

He didn't really know what he was doing there, but things looked so hopeless at this point, he was so devoid of any leads that he literally had nowhere to go. All the shoppers seemed unnaturally bright and cheerful. The stores blasted up-beat music, and brightly coloured junk of every description spilled out their doors. A couple of younger teenage girls were chasing each other round a raised garden set with benches—probably skipping school—trying not to spill the huge milkshakes they were carrying as they ran. Booth noticed a hot-dog stand, and since he'd been drinking in the middle of the day thought he should probably soak up the alcohol with some food.

He joined the back of the line, waiting while a larger woman in front of him argued about the price, and took the time to decide on a deluxe hotdog with the works. The girl behind the counter eventually finished serving the woman and Booth placed his order.

As he waited, he looked over towards the next shop, a charming little coffee place with iron-cast tables and chairs. It was pretty packed. A busker wearing a striped boating suit and a white brimmed hat had set up just outside the doors to play the trumpet, and a small crowd of onlookers was gathering to listen. Booth's gaze wandered idly over the scene as the group of senior citizens hobbled to over to watch. The busker was playing a piece from Mary Poppins, and the crowd swelled quickly, tossing coins into the open trumpet case. And then he saw her.

She was near the door of the café, thirty feet away from him, a few rows back from the busker.

His eyes must have settled on her for just a fraction of a second. The flap of a butterfly's wings. Just a glimpse of her face—he couldn't have told you what colour she was wearing, what her hair was like, what direction she was looking or if she was smiling. It was like blinking. Enough for a jolt of recognition to surge through him. And then she disappeared.

The crowd was clapping, the sound of it a thousand light years away from Booth, and then everything happened in slow motion.

For what was probably just a moment but stretched on and on, he was frozen where he stood. He tried to move but his body seemed to have forgotten how and nothing was happening. Two chattering old ladies edged right in front of where she'd stood, like a cloud covering the sun, and a man with a twisted face and round black spectacles moved forward to fill her place.

The girl at the hotdog counter was saying something, trying to get his attention and hand something to him, but his feet finally unfroze and he launched into the crowd.

How so many people had gathered so quickly he'd never know. He stumbled, staggered forwards and nearly tripped over a small girl, whose mother shrieked, and he managed to stand upright saying 'sorry' as a reflex but his eyes were frantically searching. He tried to move but more people pressed in behind him, wanting to see the busker.

'Excuse me,' he heard himself saying, trying to press through the people. The mother of the little kid was making a fuss and picking her up, yelling something at Booth but he didn't catch a word. As more people pressed forward he was jostled toward the café window, where a giant sign boasted '_Coffee and cake, $3.95!_'

He shoved a man aside and lunged forward. The man he'd pushed shouted 'Hey!' and Booth fell out into the open circle with the busker.

Booth felt the world tilt, like those two cocktails he'd downed at the bar had got him drunk. The busker stopped playing and gaped at him standing there, stupefied in the middle of the circle, and Booth crashed through the crowd on the other side, right in between the two old ladies.

She had been there. She had been _right there_. The nursing home field-trip was shuffling past to enter the coffee shop. A young family with lots of kids spilled out to toss money into the trumpet case. Booth looked in every direction. He had _seen her_, he was sure of it.

'Excuse me,' he said, grabbing the person next to him. 'A woman—there—where did she go?'

The man he had grabbed held up his hands in a 'back off' gesture and shook his head. 'I don't know, man…'

Booth spun around in the crowd again. _Bones_. He yelled her name. 'Bones!'

A lot of people turned to stare at him. 'Uh, sir, are you alright?' a woman asked warily.

Booth didn't really hear. Brennan wasn't here anymore. He scanned the back of the crowd and staggered forwards, this time people moving out of his way. He broke out into the broad walkway and frantically looked in every direction. People were everywhere. He'd never find her.

'BOOONES!' he bellowed. Whole groups of shoppers stopped and turned to gawk at him.

Another man took a step towards him. 'Hey, are you alr—'

Booth stumbled away and sprinted to the far end of the mall, scanning frantically, hoping against hope he would see her, she had to be close—

Nothing. Cheerful shoppers thronged everywhere. He jogged back down the mall, desperately looking, back past the busker and right to the other end of the shops.

He climbed up onto the rim of the big fountain, trying to see further, but couldn't spot her. A police officer on duty came up to him and asked him something, he didn't know what.

'Wait,' Booth said, jumping down and grabbing the cop's arm. 'My partner—Temperance Brennan—I think I saw her, she's been kidnapped—'

The cop looked at him sceptically. 'Kidnapped, in broad daylight? That's unlikely.'

'No, no, she was taken weeks ago, but I just saw her—'

'In the middle of the mall.'

'Yeah, over there—but she's gone—'

'Look, why don't you sit down, sir, if she's still missing after 24 hours you can file a missing person's report—'

'No!' Booth said. He was wasting time, he had to get to her. 'I have to find her! She has to be…'

Stepping back onto the fountain he stared down the mall, the thronging heads of a thousand people surging and moving like the sea. She would be gone by now. He wasn't going to get her back. Maybe he hadn't really seen her at all, maybe he just _wanted_ to see her so badly…

'Sir!' the cop was saying. 'Sir! I need you to step down off the fountain, it's not allowed…'

Booth got down and the officer looked at him warily. 'Are you sure you're alright? You can come back to the station if you want to file a—'

'Yeah,' Booth said, running a hand through his hair and blinking a few times. 'Yeah, I'll come down. I'm… I'm FBI, I've been working her case…'

'Okay,' said the officer, unable to decide if he was crazy or not. 'We've got three guys on staff today, look, we can put out a description…'

Booth suddenly saw a vehicle parked right at the far end of the mall. It was a tan Jeep. He took a huge stride towards it, then stopped, and, finally seeming to get his bearings back, turned sprinted back towards the tavern for his car.

He grabbed his phone and hit speed-dial. 'Shaw!' Booth yelled into the receiver.

'Agent Booth! What's—'

'I saw her. There's a tan jeep. I'm- I'm almost at my car. Get someone on it!'

'I'll do that, right away! Where abouts—'

'Far end of the mall, a block from the bar,' he puffed out and ended the call. He could see the SUV. He shoved his phone back in his pocket and grabbed his keys, pushing the button to unlock the doors and launching into the driver's seat.

He flicked on the siren and sped around the block to the far end of the mall, almost tipping over on two wheels as he rounded the corner.

The Jeep was disappearing to the left at the far end of the next block. A little white hatchback crossed the intersection without giving way, forcing Booth to brake heavily and skid. The light turned red and he went through it anyway, siren blaring, and caught a glimpse of the Jeep disappear to the right. He yanked out his phone with one hand and speed-dialed Shaw again, dropping it into the console and cursing himself for ending the last call.

'Give me something here,' he yelled over the racket of the siren. A sedan up ahead was slowing down which was lucky because Booth hadn't indicated, and he used the handbrake to help him turn sharply and rocket after the Jeep.

'Okay… right, I've got two police cars in pursuit, and we're tracking you on GPS,' came Shaw's voice as he jabbed on the speakerphone.

'Great. How far away?'

'Five minutes. There's a third cop car coming down from the north in case he turns that way.'

'We'll get that son of a bitch,' Booth thundered as he accelerated down a long drag of straight road, cars spilling out of his lane in front.

He heard a loud crash up ahead as a green car swerved to avoid the speeding Jeep. An instant later he passed it, he couldn't be certain in the split second but it didn't look like a fatal collision.

'Cops turning to head him off in Smith Street!' Genevieve announced.

Right then the GPS decided to start navigating Booth to the last address he'd programmed in. '_At the end of the road, do a u-turn._'

'Shut _up_,' muttered Booth, reaching across to try and turn it off. Before he could he saw the Jeep make a sharp left, and he braked and skidded to follow.

'_Continue for three blocks. At the intersection, turn left into the one-way street._'

Booth ignored the GPS and pushed the accelerator all the way down, the SUV surging forward. The Jeep swerved around something up ahead and seemed to slow down for a moment, before making a right turn at the intersection the wrong way down the one-way street. Booth slowed down a fraction and braked heavily as he followed around the corner.

'_As soon as possible, turn around,_' said the GPS.

The Jeep was blasting its horn and cars were scattering to either side as it raced toward oncoming traffic.

'_Turn off this road at the next intersection. Make a u-turn_.'

'SHUT UP!' Booth yelled, slamming at it with his fist.

Unfortunately this seemed to set it in a loop.

'_Make a u-turn. Make a u-turn. Make a u-turn. Make a u-turn._'

Another blow with the heel of his hand seemed to shut it up. The tan Jeep burst forward by a good hundred feet, Booth cursing his distraction and flooring it. The road had widened into two-lanes and cars were swerving to miss them and scattering onto both footpaths.

'Where am I headed, Shaw?'

'You're going north-east, sir. There's a major highway not far ahead, it's likely he's going there…'

'Where are the cops?'

'Catching up. The car from the north is at the highway putting up a barricade, he'll either be pulled up or have to go west…'

Booth saw the sign for the motorway flash past. The Jeep careened onto the wrong side of the road to make a turn. Booth raced up behind him and did another handbrake turn, hearing the stuff in the back of the SUV crash up against one side.

The Jeep was heading onto the highway, merging into the sliplane to the left.

'He's going west!' Booth yelled at the phone as he cut in front of a braking truck.

'One cop car is on your tail, the other one's going to merge onto the highway up ahead,' Genny said.

Booth sped up the ramp onto the eight-lane freeway, the engine roaring nearly as loud as the siren it seemed.

The GPS told him to '_Stay on this road for two miles, then take the third exit'_, but it was almost drowned out so he ignored it.

The Jeep changed lanes, jumping in front of a big eighteen-wheeler and out of Booth's line of vision. In his rear view mirror he spotted one of the police cars gaining on them. He swerved behind a ute, trying to catch sight of the Jeep without being seen himself. The huge semi behind the Jeep merged right to get out of the way, leaving the Jeep to accelerate even faster.

Booth swore and slammed his foot on the gas. That stupid Jeep was powerful, he hoped his standard-issue SUV would be up to the task.

The three cars sped on, two sirens blaring, ducking and weaving as they overtook traffic for about 20 minutes. Without warning the Jeep slowed down dramatically. The cop car was too slow to react and flew past the turnoff as the Jeep exited.

Booth skidded and made a sharp turn to get onto the exit, seeing the Jeep disappear under the freeway into an industrial estate.

'Where are the cops, Shaw?' he yelled as he hurtled through the red light and turned after it.

'The first car is taking the next exit on ahead, the second car is a few miles behind you,' she said.

The Jeep flew past a steelworks factory and a mattress wholesaler, and into the rabbit-warren of little streets and no-through-roads of the estate. Booth followed, going straight past the little street the Jeep had disappeared down and backing up to follow it.

He could hear sirens in the distance and the blue flashing lights appeared once again in his mirror. He followed the winding side-street, until finally it ended in a dead-end, and the jeep, finally cornered, pulled up.

Booth swung his car to block off the road and jumped out with his gun trained on the driver's door. 'Get out and put your hands up where I can see them!' he bellowed. The first cop car spun to a stop behind the SUV and two cops jumped out, aiming their weapons on the pursued.

As the siren of the next police car warbled and grew louder, the driver's door opened and a grinning young man got out, a smirk on his face as he slowly raised his hands. Booth and the cops rushed forwards, one of the officers cuffing him since Booth hadn't even stopped long enough to grab his set.

'Where's Broadsky?' Booth demanded as the plastic cuffs were tightened and the young man was spun around to face them.

'Who?' he said, still grinning maniacally as though this was all a huge joke.

'I'm not going to ask you a third time. _Where is Jacob Broadsky, and where is Temperance Brennan_?'

'I have no idea,' the man smirked. Booth shoved him hard against the car.

'You're lying.'

'I'm not!' he protested. 'Some guy came up to me at the mall, said he'd give me a thousand dollars and let me keep the car if I took it and sped as far and as fast as I could. Look!'

He indicated with his head the passenger seat of the Jeep, where a bundle of notes was tied together with an elastic band.

Booth could not believe it. He advanced on the kid and slammed him against the car again by the shoulders. 'Who came up to you in the mall?'

'I don't know, just some guy! It sounded like fun. A thousand bucks, man!'

'Was there a woman with him?'

'Uh, I think there was, I didn't really pay attention…'

'Brunette, tall, pretty?'

'Hey I didn't really look, okay? All I really noticed was the she was a bit vague, you know, kept staring into space… yeah, she might have been brunette, looked like hell…'

As the adrenaline pumped through him, Booth stumbled a few steps backwards, and went and sat on the ground on the far side of his SUV.

He felt physically sick. This couldn't be happening. He leant over and brought up his breakfast and both glasses of Long Walk off a Short Pier.

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Brennan will be here soon. PROMISE. In like, 2 chapters. Really. I MEAN IT.

Did you guys like the car chase? :oD Tell me yes! Or no! Cos I may be planning another one for later in the story :o)


	16. Chapter 16

The local police, Booth, the squints, Shaw and a number of agents from her team spent that evening and the next three days searching every last inch of the mall and carpark. The stores were shut down for a day and a half, posters were hung offering rewards for information, and all the retail assistants who had been on that day were interviewed.

The police managed to find a handful of shoppers who'd been listening to the busker- and the busker himself- but while they all remembered Booth, none of them had noticed a woman matching Brennan's description. Especially since the description was for a 'tall, pretty brunette with blue eyes' and no mention of what she was wearing. Not a single person said her photo looked familiar. No one had seen Broadsky, though a number of people knew him from the reports that had aired on the media.

Hodgins checked out the parking space where Booth said the Jeep had been parked. He analysed all the particulates he swept up from the concrete, but said the grass seeds and traces of tree pollen could have come from anywhere within 200 miles. He gave Booth a map with those areas highlighted—it was another needle-in-a-haystack situation.

Booth got hold of the security feeds, and managed to find one above the café giving a bird's eye view of the crowd in black-and-white. He slowed it down a dozen times, working out where she would have stood, and found a head in the spot he thought he'd seen her. It was impossible to tell who it was from the angle, but the camera took a snap every three seconds. She was only in one picture.

They ran tape feeds from the area around the mall. There was no sign of Brennan entering or leaving on foot, or if there was, she was indistinguishable.

Booth sent Angela the footage, who reluctantly agreed it was impossible to identify Brennan. If she had entered a shop, which had more cameras, it would be different, but she was sardined into the middle of a crowd. Angela said she'd render the images anyway, but later that night the files she sent back were no more helpful in high-def than when they were pixelated. They'd hit another dead end.

The days dragged torturously on. After four frustrating hours conferencing with Genevieve and the COU, Shaw reluctantly told him again that she was being put on other cases, and while she'd continue to help him out wherever she could, he was going to have to battle on alone.

In desperation, Booth called Sweets and asked him about exhuming the Jane Doe from the cemetery. Sweets agreed it could be worth a shot, though Booth didn't think he really meant it. He travelled down with Sweets, Hodgins and Wendell and had the body dug up and taken to the lab, examining the gravesite again for anything at all that might help. Wendell performed the autopsy supervised by Cam, and the verdict was Jane Doe had died of a hereditary condition. If she had died of a gunshot wound, poison or anything else indicating murder it might have been a warning- but they had to conclude there was no special message anywhere that pointed to Brennan. It wasn't even as if Broadsky was _likely _to send them a message in forensics. He was no scientist.

That had been their very last lead. Booth found himself hating Broadsky like he never had before. Killing Broadsky would go a long way to righting his cosmic balance sheet. He was determined to find him and take him down, if it took the rest of his life, but there was literally nothing more he or anyone else could think to do. At ten on a Saturday night, six and a half weeks after the kidnapping, and staring at the blank screen of his tv with an unopened beer in his hand, Booth decided he wanted to get into Broadsky's head.

At the start of this case, Booth had reckoned his two options were to locate Broadsky himself, or make Broadsky come to him. The rogue sniper had been right about one thing—Booth hadn't been able to find him. Although he had no real way of knowing for certain, he felt sure that if Brennan was there, the two of them would have been able to bring him in together. But by himself… Jacob had the higher ground. Booth would have to adapt.

He grabbed a few items from the fridge and walked out to the car. The roads were nearly empty, and forty-five minutes later, Booth was crunching down the gravel driveway of Jacob Broadsky's property. Trespassing wasn't even on the list of Booth's problems, and he shifted the gearstick into park and grabbed a gun, a bag of food and a blanket from the trunk.

Maybe this was stupid. It had to be one of the last places on earth Broadsky would go, with the FBI, the police and Booth all after him. But equally, Jacob would probably find out about it if Booth took up squatting on his land.

It felt like the tactical equivalent of a hunger strike, but Booth was sick of playing games. Here he was, with all his cards on the table. All he could do was wait.

Given the nice house, tool and firearms sheds, Booth reckoned he must have used this as his main residence for some time. It was a nice piece of land. This far out from the city you could see the stars, and the thick trees and vegetation gave the illusion of a far remoter place again. It was very peaceful.

Booth actually felt peaceful. In coming out here, he'd finally gained a sort of equilibrium. Broadsky had Bones. That was unforgivable, but he wouldn't get away with it. Booth had something Broadsky wanted, and something in his gut told him that, as good as he was at slipping through the fingers of the law, Broadsky would again try to contact him. He held onto that hunch and used it to fuel a stoic sense of endurance.

Rather than break into the house, Booth lit a fire outside and set up camp with a bed roll and sleeping bag. Bats flew overhead, screeching into the distance. Booth got out a few packs of army rations from the food bag, and heated up the contents over the fire. The food wasn't great but he washed it down with a cold beer and ate a few pieces of fruit, tossing the scraps into the scrub.

He wondered if there were cameras or other surveillance equipment around, but even if there were, he didn't care. In fact, that would be a good thing, as it might bring Broadsky out more quickly.

.

For three days nothing happened. Then on Tuesday night, seven weeks to the day after Brennan was taken, Booth's phone rang.

.

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**A/N**

**OKAY GUYS sorry it took so long, Brennan is back NEXT CHAPTER :o)**


	17. Chapter 17

He held the phone back and looked at the number. He recognised it instantly.

It was him.

Booth stared at the phone for a moment, struck dumb, then pulled out his second phone and dialled Angela.

'Hello?'

'Ange, he's calling me. I need you to trace this number, just like last time.'

'Okay, I'm on it,' she said, grabbing her laptop. 'You can answer it.'

Booth accepted the call. 'Booth.'

The person on the other end was silent. 'Hello?... Tell me where you are, you son of a bitch.'

Silence again. The line went dead.

'_Dammit_' said Booth. He grabbed the other cell. 'Ange, what have you got?'

'I've got him—I don't know how this is happening, he must have got another phone with the same number somehow—you want to go south-west, just get onto the freeway, Booth.'

Booth grabbed his gun and keys sprinted to the car. The siren was on before he even got down the driveway. He screeched round the corner onto bitumen, sending dust and gravel flying. He got his old phone, now that Broadsky was gone and sped-dialled Shaw.

'This is Genevi-'

'We've got a location, I need everyone on this,' Booth yelled into the phone.

'Really, on Broadsky? Wow- okay—I'm on it—'

Angela read out the co-ordinates and Booth repeated them to Shaw. Booth punched the location into the GPS. It was really out in the middle of nowhere. It would take him hours to get there, even without traffic and speeding like a bat out of hell. He doubted the roads in that area were sealed. All he could hope for, was that Broadsky had called intending for Booth to come, and there would be something there for him to find.

Booth sped through the night, streetlights on the highway flashing by like the windows of a passing train. It was 8.45pm, and the roads were almost empty. Booth's GPS got stuck on a loop again (Turn left. Turn left. Turn left...) and he told Angela she might need to navigate for him.

Small towns, national parks, mid-sized cities and open farmland flew past. At one point he was forced to fill up the gas tank, and he threw far too much money on the counter to save waiting around for a credit card transaction.

It started to rain, and then hail as he passed a mid-sized town, the last one on the way with any sort of a hospital, he noted. Torrents of rain pelted the windshield, the SUV's wipers going at full speed barely helped. Frustrated, he was forced to slow down in order to see the road. After another fierce wave, the streetlights flickered out and the town he was passing was plunged into darkness.

Another sixty miles and he had driven out of the storm, and was able to speed up.

'You need to take the next exit, Booth,' Angela directed.

'What exit?' called Booth back. 'There aren't any exits, haven't been for miles…'

'There have been a few, actually, according to my map… you didn't see them with all the rain, just little driveways. It's about half a mile, on your right.'

Booth spotted a narrow, one-way bitumen road. _At least it's sealed_. He had already flipped off the siren, since there was hardly anyone driving, and kept it that way as he'd rather sneak up on his prey than alert the whole neighbourhood.

He passed a shonky two-storey motel, with one incandescent bulb lighting up the sign: 'Cedar Cliffs Hotel'.

A few pine trees loomed out of the blackness, illuminated by a bright full moon, finally out from behind the clouds and the car's headlights.

'How close can you get me, Angela?'

'You're about two miles away. Stay on that road, you're going right to the end. There's a pretty big cliff so be careful in the dark...'

The road was unsealed by this point and clouds of dust hung in the air in the wake of the SUV. He could see pretty clearly now. The stars were coming out, and there wasn't a breath of wind.

Finally Booth saw the end of the road. He killed the engine and hopped out, leaving the keys in the ignition and the headlights on.

'You're right there, Booth. I can't get any closer. And your backup's right behind you.'

The headlights of two more vehicles glinted through the dustclouds, creating a smoky haze that Booth could actually taste.

The two cars pulled up and half a dozen agents piled out, setting up floodlights to help with the search. Genny Shaw walked over to Booth.

'Everyone responded as soon as we heard, sir,' she said, indicating the team.

'Good. Now let's find that phone.'

The agents spread out over a wide area, torch beams waving over the ground, calling out to each other as they marked the area into a grid to begin systematically searching.

Booth found himself wandering to the edge of the cliff. The view was terrifying and spectacular. Casting his eyes to the right, he saw a foot trail leading downwards at a steep angle.

Not really expecting to find the phone here but following his gut, Booth moved carefully down onto a long ledge that seemed to run horizontally across the dark cliff face. The lights and sounds of the team searching above him growing fainter, he waited for his eyes to adjust away from the floodlights and began to move.

It was slow going. The ledge about was three feet wide, narrower at some points, and there was no sort of safety equipment. Death would be instantaneous if he were to fall, but he wasn't really thinking about that. He just felt compelled to keep going.

Moving slowly around a protrusion of rock, Booth saw something glint in the light of the full moon. It nearly stopped his heart.

Someone was shackled to the cliff-face. Their wrists were handcuffed together and strung from a metal pin in the rock above their head and their ankles were bound to a second pin behind them. Except that it wasn't a they, it was a she. That was obvious because she had been stripped completely naked. And even though her eyes were hidden behind a blindfold and her mouth was gagged… he knew it was Brennan.

He didn't know whether to gasp in relief or sob. Every few seconds her body was wracked with involuntary, jerking muscle spasms. All thoughts of catching Broadsky fled. He couldn't have cared less. He just wanted to get to her.

Booth moved along the ledge, wrestling with himself. He had to cope with this, for Brennan. He had to make things okay. As he got closer he saw she was shivering, and in the moonlight her skin glowed pale, but also dirty. She was covered in layers of sweat and dust. There were patches of dark hair in her armpits, and he didn't know why, but that detail infuriated him even further.

Bones didn't judge people by how they looked. She often said she knew she was beautiful, but Booth could tell she was fragile in that area just like everyone is. She would be humiliated by this, being denied the dignity of taking care of herself. Self-reliance was like a life-line to her, something she would cling to when she had nothing else. Booth moved quickly, wanting to get to her and shield her before anyone else arrived.

He saw all of her— would only see more the closer he got— and he hated it. The unfairness of it. He'd protect her from being gawked at by anyone else, but he couldn't change that he _saw._ Objectively, in the greater scheme of things, maybe it wasn't all that important. But right then, before she was in his arms, it stung. This was forced upon her. He knew Bones didn't want this, not like this. The first time he saw her, really saw her, he knew what he wanted to give her. He wanted it slow and gentle, sweet, full of love, like he was sure she'd never had before. With kisses and smiles and admissions of how they'd each known from the beginning. Neither of them would choose this.

'_Bones_.'

Booth knelt beside her, noting that even through his jeans the ledge felt abrasive and rough. He carefully untied the fabric, knotted hard around her eyes, and cupped her head between his hands, unable to stop himself from softly kissing her forehead before moving to get the gag out of her mouth.

'Bones, Bones, I'm right here, I've got you, okay? You're gonna be okay. I'm right here, I got you.'

He talked gently to her, running his hands carefully over her sides and back to try and comfort her, then shrugging out of his jacket to drape it over her front.

He grabbed his phone, glancing over his shoulder to see a couple of agents had decided to climb down the rock path. 'Shaw.'

'Sir?'

'I'm on a ledge just over the cliff, I need you to call back those agents who are coming down here, and get me a blanket and some water, and bolt cutters, okay? I want you to bring them down for me, I need a female agent…'

'Right away, sir,' she said and started shouting orders.

Booth kept carefully stroking Brennan's face and back, his face close to hers, saying over and over that he was here and would take care of her. He wanted to pull her into his lap to relieve the weight she was putting on her lower legs- she could have been kneeling there for days. He forced himself to wait until Genny arrived—there was a high chance she had internal injuries, and if that was the case he could cause her a lot of pain by moving her.

He could hear Shaw calling the other guys back from the cliff and announce she was coming down with the equipment. Booth kissed Brennan's hair again and swept his thumbs over her temples. Something was beginning to worry him. Bones was not reacting at all like he expected her to. The only movements she was making were involuntary jerking and shivering. Even being in acute distress, Booth would have expected her to open her eyes, try to say something, lean towards him- anything to acknowledge his presence. Something was very wrong. It was like she didn't even know he was there. Like no sensory input was consciously registering in her brain.

Booth looked over his shoulder to see Genevieve hurrying along the ledge. She passed him the bolt cutters first. 'Here, Agent Booth.'

Booth took them and decided to free her ankles first. Then he could pick her up, have her straddle one of his legs to support her weight, and reach behind her to free her wrists. Leaning around Brennan so he had an arm on either side of the shackles, he carefully positioned the jaws around the chain and snapped. He'd worry about the actual cuffs later. Placing the cutters down between him and Genevieve, he turned back to Brennan and kissed and stroked her face again, praying she'd respond in some way.

She blinked and opened her eyes, but it was clear that she wasn't really seeing anything. Booth kept on talking to her, hoping she understood he was there and what he was going to do.

'I'm going to lift you up, Bones, okay? Tell me if anything hurts and I'll stop.'

She gazed at nothing, occasionally blinking or shuddering. Booth put his hands around her sides, experimentally applying a little pressure to see if it caused any pain. He decided her ribs weren't broken and slowly lifted her up, nudging her legs open with one knee and letting her slump against his chest. The jacket he'd draped around her slipped and fell off the cliff and he didn't bother to catch it.

'Here,' said Genevieve, handing him the boltcutters. Positioning Bones so her head was turned to one side and she could breathe unobstructed, Booth clipped a link in the chain and threaded it through the pin in the rock. He noticed to his disgust that the pin wasn't even secure. If Brennan had managed to stand up and put less downward strain on the pin, it might have detached from the rock completely, leaving her with only the small pin at her feet as an anchor to keep from falling.

Genevieve helped Booth to lower her arms, which he knew would be extremely sore from being twisted up like that for so long. He would have to wait until they got back to the cars to pick the locks on her cuffs but Booth could see her wrists and ankles were rubbed raw.

Pinning her gently between his body and the cliff, Booth motioned for Shaw to bring him the water bottle.

'Here, let me,' she said, tipping a small amount into the cap and raising it to Brennan's lips. Brennan made no move to drink it, so Genevieve prised open her mouth a little and managed to pour a few capfuls in.

'Thanks. Can you wrap that blanket around her back?'

Shaw nodded and tucked the two long edges in between Booth and Brennan on either side. Booth carefully adjusted her so her legs were wrapped around his waist and her arms around his shoulders. To his relief she held her muscles in place rather than going completely limp. He tucked the hem of the blanket under her bottom and supported her weight there with his left arm, leaving his right arm free to help him move along the ledge.

Genevieve scooped up the water bottle and bolt cutters and led the way, trying not to think too much about the dangerous feat Booth was performing by carrying his partner. Almost without thinking, Booth kept talking softly to Bones as they ascended, reassured by the fact that he could now feel her holding onto him.

She was lighter than he remembered, having picked her up once or twice in the past. She looked thin. He could easily feel her ribs as he ran his hand over her back. Her face had lost a little of its fullness, though a lot of it was dehydration. He fought the urge to squeeze her tighter. Anyone trying to get her out of his arms had better think again.

Genny climbed up the last steep section of the path and a couple of male agents grasped Booth's arms and helped him up, the rest of the team looking on.

'He found her.'

'Oh, my gosh…'

Booth readjusted Bones in his arms and walked her straight to his SUV, Genny running ahead to open the back door for him. He carefully lowered her to sit on the benchseat, and as soon as she touched the soft cushion she seemed to lose all the strength in her muscles and tumbled backwards. Booth reflexively grabbed her and let her lie down slowly and gently. He didn't know what was wrong with her but his instinct was to do everything with utmost caution. Genny was phoning for an ambulance.

'You're okay, you're safe now,' Booth murmured as he wrapped her up in the blanket. It was a cool night and she was freezing, her shivers and spasms coming in stronger movements. Booth crawled into the backseat on the far side and grabbed a couple of towels from the back, rolling them up so he could lay the top half of her body across his lap and prop her up a little. He reached over for his water bottle and started dribbling small amounts of liquid onto her chapped lips, watching her unfocused eyes dart around spasmodically, praying for some response from her, even licking the water off her lips.

Most of the FBI team continued searching the area, a couple of them digging through the vehicles for anything they could use to help Brennan. Genevieve got off the phone.

'Agent Booth?'

'Mm.'

'That was the county ambulance… they've lost power to the hospital, all the town's medical staff are on duty working to care for patients without all of their equipment…'

'Are you saying we can't get an ambulance?'

Genevieve looked like she was about to cry. 'They're all in use, the ambulances and paramedics are needed at the hospital for the patients because ambulances carry their own power supply. Also the town is 70 miles away, I don't know that travelling is the best thing for her right now…'

'Okay,' Booth said more calmly than he felt. 'Find me somewhere we can take her.'

'Right away sir.'

Booth wasn't trained in much more than basic first aid but it looked like that was going to have to do. He was determined to care for her himself—he would be able to read her and tell if she was in any pain, or notice any improvement in her responses. He didn't think her condition could get any worse. One of the other agents brought over a bunch of handcuff keys and lock picks, and Booth carefully unlocked the restraints from her wrists and ankles.

'Agent Booth?' Genny said, coming back with the phone. 'The motel back up the road—they've got a few rooms free and are willing to let us come after hours, since it's now 3 in the morning…'

Booth nodded. 'Okay. You can drive.'


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N Thank you all for having patience to stick it through 16 chapters before you got to Brennan! She'll be all-in it from now on. But kudos you guys :o) Also, this chapter has my favourite line that I've written so far and anyone who can guess what it is gets a cookie. A virtual cookie. From my head to yours. They have chocolate chips.**

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Leaving the rest of the agents to do their thing, Genevieve carefully turned the SUV around and back onto the dirt road. She kept it pretty slow at first, since it was far from smooth, checking in the mirror to see how they were doing.

Booth managed to absorb most of the bumps by cradling Brennan's head close to his chest. He kept his free hand moving up and down her arm, conscious of how cold she must be. He tried to catalogue all her symptoms and work out what was the most urgent, but ultimately he would be running on instinct. His gut had served him well in the past. He hoped it would again tonight.

The rough dirt road finally turned into bitumen, and Genny was able to speed up. Booth held Bones a little tighter now that he didn't have to worry so much about shock absorption. He eyes were closed now and her mouth opened a little. Booth shuffled toward her to sit her up at more of an angle, and focussed on feeding her water. He slipped two fingers into her mouth to prise open her lips a little more, and carefully trickled the water in, relieved when he saw her throat move indicating that she was swallowingHer breathing seemed a little fast and shallow. Booth kept murmuring to her they were nearly there—even if she couldn't hear him, even if it wasn't rational.

The little motel loomed ahead and Shaw carefully pulled into the driveway, as close as possible to the door. There were a couple of steps to climb but Booth might even be able to step out straight onto the top stair. She jumped out and rang the bell, which was almost immediately opened by a woman in a dressing gown who gave her a couple of room keys.

Booth managed to slip an arm under Brennan's knees and get her out of the car without too much difficulty. He took her straight in, following as Genny unlocked a room and ushered him inside. Despite the run-down exterior the room was pretty nice- it had a separate sleeping area from a small living room with a couch and recliner, a kitchen bench with a toaster and kettle and a bathroom with a tub.

The motel owner came in with a basket of first aid supplies, extra towels and sheets, and Genny thanked her although they had a fair bit of stuff from the FBI kits.

Booth had taken Bones straight to the bed and laid her down, and had a quick look around the room deciding what to do next. He pulled out the old charm smile to get the motel lady to leave without offending her. She seemed like she was going to hang around, gawk and generally get in the way, and Booth was in no mood to be distracted or share his partner with anyone who didn't need to be there.

He ran a hand through his hair and tried to think. She was cold, and covered in grime, so a hot bath was a good solution. However someone would have to lift her in and out and wash her, and he wasn't sure where he should draw a line… he'd been pretty careful to preserve her modesty, especially from anyone else, out of respect for her. He felt sure that if she became more lucid while he was leaning over her in a tub of water, things would go downhill very fast.

There was another reason he was reluctant to take that route, though he really would have preferred to have ignored it… he knew he should just man up and deal with it. They didn't know what had happened, and he knew that for her to be able to deal with what she'd been through, he'd have to deal with it too.

Genevieve came back in with the rest of the gear they'd packed into the car- extra blankets, Booth's gym bag, a decent first aid kit, water bottles and food. She set the stuff down on the living room and went over to Booth.

'So, what do we want to do first?'

Booth looked again at the bathroom, then glanced over at Bones. 'She needs to warm up. I'm not so worried about the dirt. I think she's got a lot of bruising and some lacerations.' He turned and appraised the bathroom again.

Genevieve shuffled on the spot a little. 'Sir, if you want to get her cleaned up, I just…'

Booth stared at her. 'What?'

'Well, I just—I think, sir, you might want to consider…'

Booth softened a little. Shaw was a good agent, and she was genuinely concerned for Brennan. He waited for her to go on.

'You need to decide if you want her to get a rape kit done, if we're going to give her a bath and clean her up…'

She had, of course, said aloud what he'd already been thinking. He forced himself to be detached about it. They didn't know anything either way.

They could drive to the nearest hospital, which would be a good three hours away. Brennan seemed to have coped okay with the short drive to the motel.

Once they were at a hospital, she would almost certainly have to be sedated if a rape kit was done. Booth thought Bones would want to know, since it was almost certain there would be parts of her captivity she could not remember, given how out of it she was now. Also, he had to consider she had been held for seven weeks. There was no way a test done tonight would give an accurate representation of the entire time she was gone. A negative would prove nothing, and a positive would suggest everything.

Whatever he decided, he had to decide soon, because Brennan desperately needed attention. What he really needed was for someone to come to them.

'Go ask the owners if anyone with a medical degree lives within ten miles,' he told Shaw. She hurried off to find out and Booth called Cam.

'Hello?'

'Hi. Are you with Paul?'

'Well…. Why? What's going on?'

'I have Bones.'

'Oh my gosh.'

'We're three hours from a hospital and I need someone to look at her.'

'Oh. Okay. Well from what Angela told me you're out in the middle of nowhere—'

'Look, I need to get her warmed up but I want her to get a rape kit. I don't have to know the results but… she'd want it done.'

'Wow. Have you asked her?'

'She's really out of it. This might be more than I can manage, she needs a doctor. Look, what I need, is you and your gyno boyfriend on a plane over here right now.'

'How are we going to get a plane—'

'I'll call Angela.'

'Where is Angela going to get a plane?'

'Hodgins.'

'Ahhh. Okay. We'll get a kit together…'

Genny ducked back in to tell Booth there was no one around. Booth nodded and called Angela.

'Hello?' answered a very harried Hodgins.

'It's Booth.'

'Oh hey, man, look now's not a really good time, Angela's water just broke—'

'Is that Booth?' came Angela's voice, actually sounding pretty calm. A second later she was on the phone. 'Booth? What happened?'

'I need Cam and Paul out here, on a plane, as fast as you can get one.'

'I uh, don't have a plane…'

'HODGINS HAS A PLANE,' Booth said loudly. Why were people so slow at four in the morning?

'Right,' Angela said. She put down the phone and Booth heard her talking in the background to Hodgins.

'It's Brennan, right? You've found her?' she said into the phone a moment later.

'Yeah, I've got her. But she needs medical attention urgently.'

'Hodgins is on his phone getting something sorted. Uh, honey—' she called out to Hodgins. 'Have the driver pick them up from Cam's place.' Back into the phone she said, 'she said Paul was staying with her this week. Oh my g- OWW,' she yelled into the phone. 'Okay, Booth,' she said a few moments later, 'I'm having contractions and it hurts like hell, give Brennan a kiss from me and tell her I love her. I've gotta go. Cam has the location, and we'll get it to the pilot… ahhhh-owww—' she took a few heavy breaths '—okay Booth, see you later.'

'Good luck Ange.' They hung up.

Booth went to sit next to Brennan on the bed, rifling through the first aid kit for heat packs. He activated all of them and slipped them under the blanket she was wrapped in, being careful they didn't come into direct contact with skin in case they burned. She seemed to be asleep, tossing and turning a bit but her eyes were wide open, glazed and unfocussed. Booth was really scared, he had no idea what the hell was wrong with her. He grabbed the water and lay down along side her, holding her close to his body to try and warm her up, and to stop her from thrashing quite as much. Cushioning her head with his hand he tried again to get her to drink, but by this stage he thought what she really needed was a drip. And a sedative. Was she already on drugs? He didn't know much about what caused symptoms like these, but he didn't like the idea of anything else being given to her unless the doctors really knew what they were doing, and what was already in her system.

Booth kept stroking her hair and talking softly in her ear, and was thankful that after ten minutes of this she began to relax a little. The spasms were less frequent and intense, and as her body slowly warmed up her shivers subsided. She even turned her head towards Booth and let out a little moan. Booth had never been so relieved to hear her make a sound.

Almost an hour later they heard the sound of a chopper outside. Booth stayed where he was with Brennan while Shaw went out to meet Cam and Paul.

Cam came in first followed by Paul who had their equipment.

'Ohhhhmigosh. You weren't kidding,' Cam said quietly, taking in Brennan. 'Thank god you found her.'

'Yeah,' said Booth, not looking up from Bones.

'What's been happening?'

'She can't focus her eyes. She was shaking pretty bad before… I don't think she knows I'm here.'

Paul set down their stuff on the end of the bed, and Cam switched into professional mode. 'Okay, we're going to take a look at her, do you want to wait in the living room?' Cam suggested.

'Yeah. Sure,' Booth said, extracting himself from Brennan without jostling her too much. He wandered over and the living room and paced.

'Seeley,' Cam said a minute later, already wearing gloves. 'Sit down, or go have a shower. There's, uh, no door to the bedroom so just… look that way,' she said waving toward the door. 'Or you're going to get an eyeful.'

'Right,' Booth sighed. Now that Cam and Paul were here, and the adrenaline of the rescue was wearing off, the long night was starting to catch up with him. He remembered they had another room booked so grabbed his gym bag and went out into the hall where he knocked on the adjoining door.

Genevieve opened the door, talking on her phone to the FBI crew and motioned him in.

'So there's nothing else on there?' she asked. 'Right. Okay, just bag it up, we'll file it with the other evidence… okay bye.'

She turned to Booth. 'They found the phone.'

'Oh. That's… that's good.' The phone, the drive over here, the hunt for Broadsky seemed like a lifetime ago. Thismorning Broadsky was the only thing on his mind, but now he had Bones back there was nothing further from it.

'How's she doing?' Genny asked.

'Uh, yeah, she's still pretty out of it. I'm leaving it to the white coats for now, I couldn't tell them much they can't just see for themselves…'

'Maybe you should take a shower, sir,' Genny suggested. 'They could be a while, and you kind of look like hell.'

Booth didn't like the idea of taking a break, not when she was right next door. But at the same time, he wanted to be alert when he was with her. And he couldn't go in there anyway… A ten minute shower might revive him a bit.

He grabbed a change of clothes out of his bag, picking out the cleanest and softest ones to give to Brennan, and headed into the shower. He tried not to think about the rape kit Paul was doing on her. The idea of Bones becoming aware of her surroundings during a procedure like that was horrible. He just had to trust that between their several medical degrees, they would be able to take the best care of her.

Booth switched on the taps and waited for the water to heat up. He grabbed the tiny bottle of scented motel goo and lathered it over his hair, face and body, too tired to care what type of product was in it. It made his skin feel clean and that was good enough. He stood under the hot water until steam fogged up the whole room, then towelled off and got dressed.

Genevieve had made tea and while Booth was more of a coffee person, he accepted the steaming cup and a piece of toast. He hadn't realised how hungry he was until he actually saw food. There was a whole loaf, and he took about half of it and sat on a recliner to eat it.

'They'll come and get us when they're done, I guess?' Genny asked.

'Yeah.'

They agents sat in comfortable silence. Booth drank some more tea to wash down the bread, and found his eyes drooping shut as he tilted the seat back.


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N **

**Sooo, I should probably put a disclaimer here, that I know jack about medicine and I'm basically Wikipedia-ing my way through this as I go… so sorry to the people who have like, nursing and medical degrees :o) Anyway. Chapter 19 :o)**

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'Booth, you in there?' came Paul's voice a short while later. Booth jumped up and opened the door.

'How is she?'

'She's… she's stable,' Paul said.

'Did you uh, check everything out…'

Paul nodded, leading the way back into Booth's room. He stood back to let Booth in first. They'd got rid of the blanket and covered her with a white sheet. Cam was sitting on the bed, running a hand through Brennan's hair in a way he had once or twice seen her do to Michelle. 'Hey Booth,' she said as he joined them.

'We took all the samples we'll need but they will have to be processed at the hospital,' Cam said as Booth sat down and took Bones' hand. Her eyes were closed now and she looked like she was asleep. Cam kept speaking in a soft tone. 'There was no visible sign of recent sexual activity, I know that isn't a hard answer but it's the best we can do. She's got lacerations on her legs and feet, a lot of them have partially healed, and abrasions on her legs, arms, knees, feet, wrists and ankles. No broken bones but some bruises on her legs and back. I think there may be some internal damage but I'd like to get her back to a hospital to do any more tests.'

'Did she wake up at all? Did she know what was happening?'

'We gave her a strong painkiller that also acts as a short-term sedative, so no, she was definitely out of it.'

'Is she still cold?'

'She's not hypothermic, but her body's clearly been working pretty hard to produce enough heat. That was a good idea with the heat packs. I don't know what happened to her but she's probably been through hell,' Cam said quietly.

'Can we get her cleaned up now? I've got clothes…'

Cam looked at Paul and he shrugged. 'We can clean her up now, while she's still out of it,' she said.

'Yeah, let's do that,' said Booth. He wanted her to wake up and feel clean and comfortable, a little more like herself. And somewhere she felt warm and safe, with him right there.

'Okay. You go run a bath for her, I'll get some stuff to clean these wounds.'

Booth found a plug and ran the water, checking the temperature like he did when Parker was younger. He laid out a bunch of towels and the soft sweatshirt and pants from his gym bag.

Paul and Cam had got out gauze bandages, antiseptic cream and a bunch of other wound-cleaning supplies. Booth picked Brennan up, sheet and all and slid her carefully into the tub, the sheet getting immediately wet and sticking to her body. Cam took over and made sure her head stayed above the water, and Booth sat down on the floor in the living room so he could see just Brennan's face over the rim of the bath, and Cam could assure him Brennan was okay and tell him about each of the wounds as she treated them.

The sun was beginning to rise as Cam pulled the plug and dried Brennan off. Booth came and lifted her out of the bath and laid her back on the bed in her towel, and helped Cam slide his oversized clothes onto her by lifting up her arms and hips, and keeping the towel in place at the same time, which made Cam smile and tease him about his 'Puritan modesty', a phrase she had undoubtedly got from Brennan. Paul and Genevieve stayed in the living room, both looking tired now that they'd stopped moving and sat down.

Finally Booth agreed to moving Bones to the helicopter. There was only room for four passengers, so Genevieve stayed behind, as much as the others would have liked her to come. Booth shook her hand and thanked her for her help, giving her the keys to the SUV to drive it back, then Paul and Cam loaded everything back onto the chopper and Booth carried Brennan on, laying her across his lap since there wasn't any kind of bed installed. He rolled up a towel to put under her head like he had in the SUV and laid her legs on the bench to one side giving him room to lay her upper body on his lap.

Booth gave the OK to the pilot and they took off. It had been a while since he had flown in one of these things, probably since his army days so he checked out the view, how exciting it felt to dip and weave and turn in a small aircraft.

He was thankful Brennan was still out to it, now that she was warm and dry— he didn't think the turbulence of a helicopter would do much for her right now. Paul and Cam had an amazing view of the sunrise, Booth was facing the other way, and before too long Cam's head had dropped on Paul's shoulder, and Paul's head on hers, in attempt to get some sleep. Booth saw the FBI teams, now packed up and driving away, and the cliff and the deep valley and all the pine trees. He leaned his head back and shut his eyes.

About five minutes later, so it seemed, Cam, Paul and Booth were jolted awake as the chopper descended onto the landing pad on the roof of the hospital. Booth held Bones a bit tighter to stop her sliding around and, a fair bit more smoothly than he thought they would, the craft touched down and switched off the engine.

EMTs were waiting with a stretcher, Booth noticed with a twinge of reluctance. He was like the walking dead but he still didn't like the idea of giving her over to someone else. He would just have to insist he accompany her everywhere.

With the help of the step ladder he brought her down and laid her out on the stretcher. The medics wheeled her inside immediately, and her escort followed them into the lift and through the halls to the ED.

The building was so clean and sterile. The fluoro lights and faint smell of antiseptic made everything feel clinical. _Bones would like it_, Booth thought. Although maybe right now she wouldn't. Maybe she would just want to go home.

They watched as two nurses came and inserted a drip and put her on some oxygen. One nurse closed the curtain so they could insert a catheter, then a doctor came and Cam and Paul explained where she was found and what they had already done. A nurse collected the samples from Paul's rape kit and took them to the hospital labs to be checked. The doctor began looking at her eyes, ears, nose and throat while another nurse hooked her up to a heart monitor and a couple of other machines that Booth didn't know what they did.

'We'll let her get through this bag,' the doctor said, indicating the drip in her arm. 'That's nutrients and fluids. We'll run some blood tests and urine samples and see what she might have in her system. I'd like to keep her on oxygen for the first few hours, then we'll see how she's doing. I'll need to get her files if she has any—'

'Yeah, she's been here before,' said Booth. 'I'm uh, her—we're each other's medical proxy.'

'Any allergies?'

'Not that I know of. And… if she did I would probably know about it.'

The nurse finished hooking her up to the monitors and started taking a couple of blood samples.

'Is she still under?' Booth asked as the nurse inserted another needle.

'Looks like it. She seems exhausted.'

Booth suddenly needed to tell the nurse all her symptoms again. 'Her eyes—they were moving, and, she um, wasn't saying anything…' he rambled.

Cam put an arm on Booth's shoulder and he stopped talking, then pinched the bridge of his nose.

'Look, Seeley, you really need to go home. Get some sleep. Brennan's not likely to wake up for a few hours yet …'

'Yeah, but I can't just leave her here,' he said as the last medic left the cubicle. 'I should be here when she wakes up. What if she doesn't know where she is? She could freak out—'

'They're gonna put her in a coma—'

'They are? Did the doctor say that? I don't remember him saying that.'

'That's because he was talking to me and Paul, so he just spoke in medical terms—'

'I can stay in the waiting room if I get tired of standing.'

'Hey, it's your call. But she's likely to be here for a few days so make sure you pace yourself. I uh—I should really go see how Angela's doing,' Cam added.

'Oh, right, the baby. Man, Bones will hate that she missed this.'

'I'm sure Hodgins will have a camera,' Cam smiled. She smiled at the mental image of a very excited Hodgins buzzing around a very testy Angela.

'I just got a text from one of my patients,' Paul said apologetically, flipping his phone shut. 'Sorry to have to leave. These guys are good, Booth, she'll be in good hands.'

'Yeah. Thanks for coming out.'

Paul nodded 'that's okay', pecked Cam on the cheek and headed off to the maternity ward. Cam went over and did a last check over Brennan. Her eyes were shut, a scrape over her left temple clean but inflamed. Her chest rose and fell slightly, her breath fogging up the oxygen mask. She looked peaceful.

'You'll want to get some vitamin E or Bio Oil or something to help those wounds heal,' Cam advised. 'She'll get stuck with a lot of scars otherwise.'

Booth nodded, hoping he would actually remember all of this.

'You can get a nurse to come round,' Cam added smiling. 'Oh, I just got a text from Hodgins—I better get over there. You… I know you're gonna stay here, but Angela would probably love to show off the baby.'

'Has the baby arrived yet?'

'No, probably a few more hours. She's been in labour for about nine hours, but it'll be sometime today.'

'Yeah. Tell them congratulations from me.'

'Will do.' Cam turned and headed off in the same direction as Paul.

Booth sneaked a plastic chair from the waiting room and took it into Bones' cubicle. And began to wait.


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N **

**Hey lovely readers! So, from the next instalment a lot of the chapters are getting longer… which is both good and bad because you get more in one update but updates might be slightly further apart. **_**Anyway**_**. Here is Ch 20, hope you like it, there's like a 90% chance of me making mistakes with the medical stuff so sorry about that, aaaand that's about it. Enjoy :o)**

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Booth ended up resting his head on the side of Bones' bed. It was a pretty awkward angle and he could already feel his neck and back start to ache.

Brennan slept about six hours, lulled out of consciousness by the soft bed and exhaustion. Booth thought she gained a little colour as the drip emptied.

Around 12, she was wheeled off for some x-rays. By 2pm she'd been settled into her own room, which, luckily for Booth, had a comfier chair than the one from the waiting room. Finally the doctor came in with her test results.

'I've got her bloods, urine and rape kits,' he told Booth. 'Rape kit was negative. That's not a 100% guarantee, since she was missing for nearly two months but it's better than nothing.'

Booth nodded, feeling somewhat relieved about that.

'X-rays showed no broken bones.'

That was a relief. She'd been moved and carried and jostled in and out of cars and planes.

'Bloods and urine tests were positive for a number of drugs.'

Booth felt his stomach bottom out. He ran his hand gently along Brennan's arm, the pock marks and vein bruising was evidence that something had happened.

'There's a bit of a list, and it's no wonder she's presenting so many symptoms. She's had PCP, morphine, amphetamines, barbiturates, and an antipsychotic…'

That was a load more than Booth had expected. 'What? Morphine, so that's a pain killer, what was the barbarian one?'

'Morphine is an opiate, a narcotic. It's addictive and can be abused like any drug— it doesn't seem likely this was given for the purpose of pain relief. Barbituates are sedatives. Used in conjunction with amphetamines, speed, will put the body under a huge amount of stress…'

Booth looked down at Brennan sleeping beside him. He absorbed the information quietly.

'Is she gonna be okay?'

'Well, yes, she's likely to have withdrawals soon with the amount that's been in her system.'

'Oh. Withdrawals, you don't think she's been fed drugs for the whole seven weeks? I mean, if it was just one time, there wouldn't be withdrawals…'

'Look, we can't know everything that happened to her, all we can do is find out as much as we can and go from there.'

'What about her eyes, the shaking…'

'From what Dr Saroyan told me, she was very unfocused and not responding to external stimuli. This is likely to be a reaction to the drugs in her system but there could be other causes as well. This isn't purely a case of drug abuse, there's likely to have been other forms of torture, there are any number of reasons for her symptoms. The shaking has subsided now that she's sleeping.'

Booth felt he was taking this news fairly calmly, but as the doctor spoke, he began to feel like… like Alice falling down the rabbit hole, or something. The more he found out, the deeper he fell, the bigger and stranger things grew. The more he realised he didn't know. What the hell had happened to Bones?

'We'll administer some small doses of a couple of those drugs to wean her off less drastically. She's going to be better off in an induced coma for the next few days, if we let her wake up she's just going to be in pain. Depending how long she's been on them and the amount, her withdrawals could be quite serious. We'll be keeping a close eye on her.'

'Yeah. Good.' Booth picked up Brennan's hand and drew circles on her palm with his thumb.

'She's malnourished and dehydrated. The IV will be helping with that. And on principle I'm opposed to the over-prescribing of antibiotics, but her immune system has been very weakened so I'm putting her on a full course of those as well.' The doctor considered Booth for a moment. 'You should go home. You can't sleep in these chairs, I've tried.'

'Yeah they are a bit um, Spartan, aren't they.'

'You should see the ones in the staff cafeteria.'

Booth smiled politely and watched the doctor stride out and close the door. He felt numb. He thought this should be harder to hear, but he was handling this information, this situation as if he faced this every day. Maybe working as a cop had hardened him. Maybe he'd just expected the worst, that she wouldn't have made it, and anything, anything was better than losing her altogether.

He stretched and let out a huge yawn. The doc was right, Booth thought, about getting some rest. _I probably look like hell._

He gazed again at Bones as she peacefully slept. It was strange, to hear all those things about what she went through, to see her lying here so serene. It was highly unlikely that she would wake up tonight, but if she did, he didn't want her to wake up to an unfamiliar, empty room. He pulled out his phone to check the time, then had an idea.

He didn't have a pen or paper on him, so he went out to the nearest nurses' station he could find and asked for something to write with. It wasn't ideal, but it would allow him to get to sleep instead of worrying 'what if' all night. Five minutes later, he had pulled a bedside table to well within Bones' reach if she were to wake up. Hopefully she would see it. He put his new phone next to the note, which read-

'Bones-

If you wake up while I'm not here, give me a call and I'll come right over. You don't have to say anything. I'm speed-dial one.

–Booth.'


	21. Chapter 21

Booth felt like _he'd_ been the one on a sedative, cos as soon as his head hit the pillow in his apartment half an hour later he was out to it. At five the next morning his alarm clock buzzed, and he grabbed his phone to see three new text message alerts flashing on the screen.

'_Michael Staccato Hodgins, born 1am, Ange and the baby doing well. -Hodgins'_

The next one was from Cam. _'It's a boy! What a marathon. Lab closed 2day. Update on Brennan?'_

'_Come anytime and meet baby Michael, G-man. How's Bren? Tell her I missed her. –Angela'_

Booth swung his legs off the bed and grabbed a pair of jeans and a Flyers t-shirt. He messaged Cam back—

'_Bones is stable, a lot of drugs in her system. Nothing broken. Kit negative.'_

He punched quick replies back to Hodgins and Ange- _'Congrats :o) I'll tell her. Will see you today.'_

He grabbed some toast and went out for a short run. There was a park not far from his place full of big established trees. It was a place Brennan used to frequent, and he'd joined her there on more than one occasion. He passed a big cherry blossom tree, a coffee cart, an underpass below a pedestrian bridge- all of it beautiful and clean and fragrant.

The place he'd finally found Brennan was beautiful, too. Deceptively so. The pine trees, clear sky and crisp fresh air might have felt like a paradise to him, but to her they had been hell. If she'd even sensed them there at all.

He jogged back home, showered and changed his shirt and drove to the hospital. The carpark was half-empty at 6.30 in the morning. He walked into main reception and headed up to the lifts. His first stop was Brennan's room—she mustn't have woken up, his phone and note were exactly where he'd left them.

Thismorning she looked much the same as yesterday. She had a second drip in her arm, and the first IV from yesterday had been replaced with a new bag. Looking at the angry red marks on her arms and face, Booth remembered Cam's suggestion of getting vitamin E oil. He could get some from the hospital chemist and put some on her now. He smoothed the hair off her face and said 'Hi, Bones' to her.

'Bones, I'm going to go get something for you. I'll be back in half an hour, okay? I'll see you soon.'

For some reason he felt the need to act as though she wasn't unconscious. He didn't really know or care why, Sweets would probably have something to say about it. But if she was in there, and could hear him, he'd soliloquise all day.

Leaving Bones' room, he wandered out into the hall and followed the signs to the maternity ward and got directions from a nurse to Angela's room. As he knocked on the door he realised he'd forgot to bring any flowers but figured under the circumstances, Angela wouldn't mind.

'Booth!' Ange grinned as he came in. She was cradling a small lump wrapped up in soft blue baby blankets. Hodgins was beaming proudly. Booth held Michael and updated them about Brennan. It was weird—something terrible and something happy, all at once. Bones would feel confused, he thought wistfully.

Not wanting to hang around too long, Booth gave Michael back to Angela and somehow navigated through to maze of halls and wards to the pharmacy. He got a bottle of Vitamin E oil, a stuffed pig and a bunch of flowers, and somehow managed to juggle all of it back to Brennan's room.

Pushing the door open with one elbow, he slipped inside and laid out the gifts on her table, then sat down next to her and opened the bottle of ointment.

'Hey Bones,' he said quietly. 'Angela had her baby. She was pretty sad you couldn't be there. I… I didn't go up there until after, so that way I wasn't there either and you don't have to be the only one who missed all the pushing and screaming.'

He smiled at her, still hooked up to heart monitors. Her pulse was slow and rhythmical, like she was in the middle of an REM cycle. Booth talked anyway.

'Cam thinks you need some of this stuff… apparently it will fix your skin up. I'm just gonna put some on your arms and face, okay? It shouldn't be uncomfortable. You know, when Parker was two he managed to get the chicken pox, and I had to rub cream all over his spots, it smelled awful, this stuff is much better…'

Booth carefully dripped the oil onto her skin. She hadn't rolled over in the night but stayed perfectly still, so the oil wouldn't get brushed off and would have time to soak in. Cam had dressed some of the newer lacerations that hadn't formed scabs yet, so Booth focussed on the older ones. He did one arm, all the wounds that he could reach without disturbing her, then moved his chair to the other side to do her face and left arm.

'You could probably tell me what this stuff does, scientifically speaking. I'm really just taking Cam's word for it, it could be gluggy water for all I know, I'm trusting that she isn't having me on.' When he'd done all accessible parts of her arms, he smeared a few drops over the wound on her temple.

Booth sat with her for a few hours, squeezing her hand and hoping the simple touch would register with her somehow. He knew he would probably have to repeat it all when she woke up and got better, but he wanted to tell her how much he'd missed her, and stories about how he found her. He hoped that even if she was too out of it to understand what he was saying, the low timbre of his voice would be soothing and familiar.

Around lunchtime Cam came to visit. She knocked on the door and opened it slowly.

'Hey Cam,' Booth smiled.

She returned the smile and came in, closing the door behind her as two nurses hurriedly wheeled a screaming patient up towards the maternity ward. 'How's she doing?'

'Hasn't woken up yet. She's still got a lot of drugs in her system.'

'Yeah, I ran into her doctor on the way up and he filled me in about that. She's going to have a rough few days.'

'Which is why they're keeping her asleep.'

'You been here all morning?'

'Yeah. I dropped in on Angela and Hodgins earlier. Met little Michael.'

'He's pretty cute.'

'Yeah he is. Healthy too, perfect vision.'

Cam nodded, and pulled up a second chair to sit beside Brennan. 'So she'll be kept here sedated for about a week until she's out of any withdrawals.'

'A week huh? What, uh… what then?'

Cam shrugged. 'Don't know. Depends how she is.'

Booth squeezed Brennan's hand again. 'What if… you know, she's still not talking, not responding… I mean that can't all be drugs.'

'It might be, might not. We'll know more once we can rule drugs out of the equation.'

Booth brought his laptop in over the following days. Much like, he remembered, Brennan had done once for him. He wondered if she was partly aware of what was being said around her, like the dream he had when he was in a coma. He talked to her every day, just in case, telling her about Parker and the new SUV and how they were looking after he apartment til she got back.

He was still not officially employed by the FBI as Broadsky was still at large. He sent a few emails to COU (signing as Jupiter) to update them on what had happened the night he found Brennan, which they collated with the information Genny Shaw and her team provided. There was a fair bit of work he could do remotely. COU couriered some paperwork to him, and he kept in contact with Shaw's team as they chased down a few leads they'd sourced from the discarded phone.

Genevieve came to visit the third afternoon of Brennan's hospital stay, leaving a big bunch of flowers on her table and getting an update on her condition from Booth.

Booth went home for a few hours sleep each night, leaving his second phone and note within easy reach just in case, although it was highly unlikely she would wake up.

Brennan's doctor updated Booth on her progress each day when he came to check on her. While it was hard to get a complete picture of her symptoms because she was unable to talk, she was having a few spells of involuntary muscle movement and hot and cold flushes. Booth got the feeling the doctor knew about other symptoms she'd be having but declined to tell him to give him less to worry about.

Angela was discharged from the post-natal ward and settled in back at home, coming in to visit Brennan a couple of times later in the week. She was distressed and teary the first time she saw her, hooked up to monitors with IVs and oxygen, but after a few hours she rallied and told her all about Michael.

Booth stayed where he was when other visitors came, unless they kicked him out to 'talk privately' with Brennan. Actually, Angela was the only person who did this, and Booth was pretty sure it was because she was talking to Brennan about him. He didn't need much imagination to figure out exactly _what_ she was telling Brennan, either.

He didn't say so to Angela, but he thought it was sweet, the two best friends in there. Angela probably didn't know that the partners had already had that talk— that when they were ready their next, and hopefully last relationship would be with each other. Booth tried not to dwell on that, because however close they might have been to getting together before her abduction, that date would now be pushed back. All his focus had to be on helping Bones get better.

Bones was due to be released on Thursday, if everything went well. She would be taken off the medicines making her sleep and the drips, and they'd give her normal food and drink. That was tomorrow afternoon, and Booth sat beside her bed on his laptop, going over some notes from Hodgins about soil samples the FBI techs had recovered. He made a quick call to Cam, his eyes trained on Brennan, to see if she would move.

He spoke quietly as always when he made phone calls, but had noticed today that when he spoke, after being quiet for a long time, Brennan would turn her head towards him. He said hi to Cam when she picked up, and passed on some details of what the FBI were doing on the Broadsky case, and watched Brennan. He saw her chest rise and fall like she was taking in a deep breath. Then she clenched her fingers, and lifted one hand to her face. And opened her eyes.

'Cam, Bones is waking up, I've got to go,' he said into the receiver.

'Oh! Yes, sure, give her all our love.'

They ended the call and Booth scooted his chair over to Brennan, so he was sitting at her eye level. 'Bones,' he said, taking her hand and watching her dazedly look around.

She pulled her hand away and tried to remove the oxygen mask. 'Whoa whoa whoa, hang on, there,' Booth said, catching her hand before she could pull it off. 'Just a minute, where's that call button…'

He jabbed the button to call for a nurse, then carefully unstrapped the mask and removed it for her. She was looking right at him, those big blue eyes finally open after a week of sleeping. Booth felt as if the world stopped in that moment—seeing those eyes bore into his was something he thought he might never have again.

Now the mask was off she started fidgeting, bending her legs up and looking around the room, clutching her chest with her arms. She wasn't frantic, but she seemed clearly disoriented at waking up in a hospital. _If she even recognises it as a hospital_, Booth thought. _With all the hallucinogens and psycho drugs she was on…_

A nurse came in and took out the IVs from her arms and pulled the monitor pads off, and supported her back to help her sit up. Booth hung back a little to give her space as she got her bearings. She looked less freaked out now that she didn't have things sticking out of her. Booth was suddenly struck by how frightening it must be for her to have more needles in her arms after the obvious drug abuse she went through at the hands of Broadsky.

'Bones, you're safe,' he said, still seated beside her. She looked towards him, her gaze about a foot to his right, not quite meeting his eyes. While she was still slow and sleepy, she had a mild deer-in-the-headlights look about her. She was wary and scared.

'Bones.' Booth tried again, using the same soft voice he'd spoken in while talking to her in her sleep. 'Hey, you're alright. You're in a private room at the hospital. You're back in D.C., you're going home soon, okay?'

Though she didn't seem to take his words in, Brennan caught his gaze again and seemed to find the connection enough to relax her. She turned a little and slumped to lay on her side, facing Booth. Her hand a bit shaky, she reached up to brush her hair out of her eyes and tuck it behind her ear.

Booth reached forward and rubbed his hand back and forth over her shoulder, where she didn't have any injuries. 'Hey, how are you feeling?'

Brennan didn't respond, but continued to stare dazedly into his eyes. Booth smiled at her, and he could have sworn that the corner of her mouth twitched upwards for an instant to mirror him.

The doctor came in and read what the nurses had written on her chart. 'Temperance, you're awake,' he said to Brennan.

'Yeah, she woke up just a minute ago,' Booth replied, knowing she wouldn't respond.

The doctor got out a pen light and switched it on. 'Temperance, I'd like you to follow this light with your eyes. Can you do that for me?'

Brennan didn't move a muscle. She was still looking at Booth, but not quite making eye contact now. Booth squeezed her shoulder again hoping she would respond to him. 'Can you follow the light, Bones?'

Brennan did nothing. Booth turned to the doctor. 'Do you know why she's doing this? Not responding?'

The doctor put his pen light away. 'I don't have a solid answer, no, but I think the next step now that she's been on drips and is a little better physically, would be to go to the psychiatric ward.'

'What?' said Booth. 'No, Bones, she isn't crazy. She's just, I mean she's been through a lot. She's not insane.'

'The psychiatric ward isn't an insane asylum, and I agree with you that insanity is unlikely. From what I understand, she was missing for seven weeks, without any outside contact, tortured and fed dangerous drugs. PTSD would be my first guess, but the doctors over there specialise in that area.'

'So she's not going to be discharged today?' Booth didn't know if he was relieved or upset.

'No, no, she is—physically she's much improved, she should be able to move quite normally, eat and drink, that sort of thing. Her body's coped well with the withdrawals. She should see a GP once a week for a check-up but I don't foresee any serious physiological problems.'

Booth nodded. 'So, are we going to the psych ward now?'

'Tonight or tomorrow morning. I'll sign her out thisevening, and she can get dressed and head on over.'

Booth didn't really think Brennan was ready to be discharged, but he knew there would be other sick patients waiting for the room. He was actually looking forward to the challenge of taking care of her, and felt that he would do a better job of the day-to-day stuff it than over-stretched medicos.

'Can she stay here overnight and go to the psych ward in the morning?'

The doctor frowned at her chart. 'If you don't feel you can take her home tonight, I'll allow it.'

'Yeah. That'd be great.'

'I'll let the nursing staff know to out her back in her clothes and get her to shower and do some walking.'

'Okay. That sounds good. Thanks.'

Booth turned to Brennan again, who had now half-closed her eyes as though drowsy. _She probably just had a rush of adrenaline when she woke up,_ Booth thought. _This is the low after the high._

The doctor left and Booth waited 20 minutes before the nurses arrived, consistently brushing his hand over her shoulder and trying to catch her eye.

'Hear that, Bones? You get to wear… well, you get to wear my comfy sweatpants and sweatshirt again, and I know how much you like them because of that day when we broke down on the highway, and you used them as a pillow til the tow truck came. Remember that? You said they smell like me. I don't think you meant to say it out loud so I pretended I didn't hear.'

Brennan shut her eyes completely and rolled over towards him just a little. Two nurses opened the door and came in.

'Looks like you're being discharged in the morning,' one of them said to Brennan, who didn't move from her position of curling up towards Booth. 'So we need to get that catheter out, get you showered and changed, then we'll get you to do some walking up and down the hall.'

'Bones,' Booth said quietly. 'You need to get up now, okay? Do you think you can do that?'

Brennan blinked a few times and made a scrunchy face. Booth figured that was the best response he could expect right now so he pulled his chair away from the bed and let the nurses pull out the catheter and helped Brennan sit up (which consisted more of them lifting her than her moving). They swung her legs onto the floor and supported her into the adjoining bathroom. Booth got out the soft, loose outfit she'd worn here and handed it to one of the nurses.

'We should be about 20 minutes,' the nurse said. 'Why don't you go get a coffee?'

'Uh, yeah, good idea,' Booth said, not really wanting to leave but feeling maybe he should to give her more privacy. Maybe a shot of caffeine would do him good.

He wandered round the ward til he found a hot drinks vending machine. He slipped in some coins and punched in 'cappuccino'. He found he was fixated on thinking about Bones in the shower. Not in a sexual way, not right now but more that he was just concerned about how she was managing. _I mean, she could barely stand up_, Booth thought. He'd never had to be showered in a hospital before, and he hoped the experience wasn't freaking Brennan out. As a general rule, surprising Bones meant getting socked in the head.

When there was nothing buy cold dregs in his Styrofoam cup, he figured it had been at least 20 minutes and went back to the room.

Brennan was sitting on the edge of her bed. Her hair was damp and combed, and the oversized clothes dwarfed her. She had her arms folded around her body and was slumping forward, staring blankly at a spot on the ground,

Booth went over to her and put an arm around her shoulder. He wanted her to know she wasn't alone in this. He just wanted her to trust him.

'How did it go?' he asked the nurses.

'She didn't like standing up so we used a plastic chair,' one of them said. 'A lot of her wounds are healing up.'

Booth glanced down at her. Each day as she slept he had put vitamin E oil on the exposed cuts and wounds on her face and arms, but there would be many more. He knew Cam had told him, but couldn't remember what she said.

'We've got a walker,' said the other nurse, bringing in one of those wheeled frames often used by elderly people.

'Yeah, that sounds good,' Booth smiled. He leaned his head around to a spot he could maybe catch Bones' eye. 'What do you think, Bones? You've gotta be stiff and sore from lying in bed all week.'

Brennan kept staring at the floor and made no response. Booth's heart sank again. He didn't know how much she was understanding, and the thought of her not knowing him was almost unbearable.

The nurses wheeled the walker up to her, picked up her hands and guided her to stand holding the handles. Her face was all concentration, but Booth saw a hint of panic, too. Was she scared she was going to fall? Or just overwhelmed by this new task? This was the first time since he'd found her that he'd seen her actively do something.

She took a few shuffled steps then stopped. 'It's okay, Bones. You're doing great. We're not gonna let you fall. Just up and down the hallway. You can do that.'

Though she didn't look in Booth's direction, she stood up a little taller and took slow but determined steps out into the hall. The two nurses followed behind her and Booth kept a pace ahead beside her, so she could actually see he was there.

They went a fair bit slower than Booth on a Sunday stroll, but when they got back to the room Bones was hardly leaning on the frame but was pushing it instead.

'You did really well,' said one of the nurses as she helped Brennan back onto the bed and rolled the walker away.

'Yeah, you did, Bones,' Booth smiled encouragingly. Brennan gripped the bed railing and curled up on her side again, peering at Booth through her eyelashes as though she was trying to hide it.

The nurses left and Bones closed her eyes and drifted off again. At about seven, someone brought some food in. There were two trays—someone had got one for Booth, too.

'I think all the nurses are in love with you,' the caterer smirked. 'They _insisted_ I bring a second meal for the handsome man who's been in here all week.'

Booth chuckled and took the tray she handed him. Brennan's was left on the bedside table, since she was on her side. When the woman had left Booth put his tray to one side and came to help Bones.

'Hey, Bones, you hungry? Come on, you should eat something, look you've got soup and a bread roll, pudding and a fruit smoothie. You've just gotta sit up a little'

Brennan didn't respond. Booth put a firm hand on her back, and applied a little pressure to help her sit up. She, however, didn't want to—either that or she had no idea what was happening. She squeezed her eyes shut and jerked away, curling into herself even more. Booth let out a long breath. The last thing he wanted to do was push her when she wasn't ready. Or was it suddenly his touch that she was recoiling from? She hadn't before. 'Okay, it's fine, you don't have to eat right now. I'm having mine, though.'

He sat back down and began eating his meal, being sure to do so in her line of vision. Maybe when she saw and smelled the food, she'd want some too.

Brennan hardly moved a muscle. A couple of times her arm or leg twitched involuntarily, but she didn't seem at all interested in the food. Booth wasn't entirely sure if she was watching him, or staring blankly into space.

He scooted over and offered her the pudding cup but she made no response. _Maybe she just hasn't been fed in a long time_, Booth thought. _She's noticeably thinner_.

Booth had been trying not to think too hard about why she had lost so much weight. He hated the mental image of her being locked in a cell with a crust of bread and water, left to lie in the dirt for weeks. But from what he could make out, that was about the size of it.

_But she's being discharged tomorrow_, he reminded himself. _She has to be able to eat and drink_. Booth replaced the pudding and grabbed the smoothie.

'Bones.' He held it out to her. 'You're being discharged in the morning, okay? You won't have to be here anymore. But if I'm going to take you home, I need you to show me you can eat.' He bent the straw over and put it to her lips. 'Just try this. You don't have to drink it all. I think it's strawberry.'

Brennan didn't respond for a minute, but Booth didn't back away. He nudged at her mouth with the straw. Finally she took the straw between her lips and sipped at it.

'That's good, Bones,' Booth smiled at her. She closed he eyes and kept sipping, til she'd drunk about half of it. At that point she clearly decided she was done, released the straw and rolled over. Booth reached over her and put the cup back on the table, then moved to brush her hair out of her face.

Brennan violently jerked away from him, nearly falling off the bed. She slammed into the railing and writhed to extricate herself from the sheets and get away.

'Hey!' Booth said. 'Bones, settle down, no one's going to hurt you!'

She looked at him with wide terrified eyes, as if he was about to beat her or something, then scrambled off the bed and stumbled over to crouch in the corner of the room. She looked terrified, and after a moment she started shaking- big, violent shivers like she was having a seizure.

Booth grabbed the call button and ran into the hallway. 'Hey! We need some help in here!' he yelled. A nurse from the nearby nurses station hurried over. 'She's—she's convulsing, she got scared—'

The nurse took one look at her, hurried back to the counter and returned with some tablets. She approached Brennan with them and a glass of water from the table. 'Honey, I need you to swallow these for me.'

'She's not going to take them, she's freaked out by all the drugs—' Booth started, but to his surprise Bones allowed the nurse to slip them into her mouth, sip from the water and swallow.

'What the hell just happened?' Booth said.

The nurse helped Brennan lie down on the floor, grabbing a pillow to put under her head. 'There are lots of causes for seizures. They can be a symptom of drug withdrawl, so it's not unexpected. It's normal.'

Booth looked at her with wide eyes. _Is she serious? Not a big deal?_ 'She was shaking a lot when I found her, but not this violently. She's not ready to go home!'

'Look, she'll be able to sleep tonight with what I've just given her, and tomorrow she's going to the psych ward. They'll be able to help her out.'

'No.' Booth folded his arms. 'No, Bones is not… she doesn't need that. She's got something _physically_ wrong with her, it's obvious, she's been fed drugs and slashed up all over, and now she's having convulsions, you must have missed something…' He looked on helplessly as the shaking began to subside. The worst of it was that this episode appeared to have happened because of _him_. He'd gone to touch her and she'd recoiled. Before, she had been fine. _When she was out of it_, he reminded himself. Now she was becoming more lucid, it was pretty clear that she was wary of him. He'd been able to touch her when she was asleep or in a drug haze, but once she woke up… she was afraid of him.

'I can assure you, the doctors have run the full gamut of tests searching for any damage to her body. And everything we've found, we've treated. Drug withdrawal symptoms are nasty, we've been able to skip over the worst of it by keeping her sedated, but she's likely to have some lingering symptoms for a couple more weeks. A seizure like this isn't life threatening. We'll be prescribing her sedative tablets you can administer if this happens again.'

Booth watched her, lying quietly on the floor, eyes closed and giving an occasional shudder.

'Should I put her back in bed?' he asked. 'She… I think she got scared of me. Before. I…'

'We'll leave her where she is for a few minutes, let her fall asleep, then we can put her in bed,' the nurse said.

'Yeah…' Booth sat down again, not knowing what the hell to make of this. What was he going to do with her, if she was afraid of him? She clearly didn't know who he was. Bones _knew_ that he would do anything for her and would never, ever hurt her. Just like he knew she'd do anything for him. They'd been through this in their partnership—you'd die for your partner. She _knew_ him. But not anymore.

_Maybe she does need to go to the psychiatric ward. I mean, if she can't remember things… still can't see where she is… she's not on hallucinogens any more. This isn't going away._

The nurse had left the room and come back with a male wardsman. Booth had been going to pick her up—he figured that she wouldn't be afraid if she was asleep—but he just sat and watched as the wardsman took her upper body and the nurse lifted her legs, and laid her back on the guerney.

They left moments later, and before long the lights in the hallway were dimmed. Booth thought about going back home, but despite the fact that Brennan was afraid of him, he just couldn't leave. If there _was_ something seriously wrong with her mind, she might be admitted to the psych ward. What if she was forced to stay there? Away from everyone she knew and loved, her work, the Jeffersonian… him?

Booth grabbed an extra pillow and blanket and lay down on the floor in the spot Brennan had her seizure. If this was the last night he could have with her, he wasn't going to miss it.


	22. Chapter 22

**A/N**

**Hey guys, sorry about the wait for this chapter! Real life has peskily been getting in the way of what I would vastly prefer to be doing, aka writing this 24/7 :o) Hope you like it! (and don't worry, I'm not really into angst or tragedy, so it'll all come good.)**

.

.

Booth awoke the next morning to the sound of something crashing on the floor. He sat up, startled, to see Brennan's food tray upended. Brennan looked startled too—she had her arms out as if in the middle of stretching. She must have knocked it off the table. Both of them stared at the mess on the floor.

Booth glanced up at Brennan, her eyes still fixed on the spilled food. Should he go over and reassure her? She had clearly just woken up herself- she was rubbing one eye with her fist now, and looked confused, trying to work out where she was.

Booth was saved from having to make that decision when the doctor walked in. 'Everything all right in here?' he asked. 'I was just coming to discharge you.' He glanced at the dropped food tray and put two and two together.

'Um, I'm not so sure that's a good idea, for her to… She had a seizure last night,' Booth tried to explain.

'Yes, I heard all about it. Not unexpected. I've got some pamphlets about non-epileptic seizures you can read through. They look a bit frightening but I wouldn't consider them dangerous. I don't believe it is epilepsy in this instance, but I can refer you to a specialist so you can rule out the possibility.'

'Uh, yeah, that'd be great.'

'A nurse is bringing over a wheelchair for Temperance. If I can just get your signature here, we can send her over to Psych.'

Booth got up and walked past Brennan, who was still staring motionless down at the tray on the floor. He took the clipboard, read it through and signed.

'Thank you. I'll send over her scripts and that information for you with the nurse.'

Booth nodded and the doctor left the room.

There was silence. Brennan went right on staring at the floor. Booth, sitting against the wall with his pillow and blanket didn't know whether to stand up, or move, or talk to her… Where the hell did they stand with each other right now? That conversation several months ago in his apartment, burning bits of paper and agreeing to move things forward… that seemed like another life. Booth watched her as she sat like a statue, staring into space, not knowing who he was or where _she_ was…

The door opened and a nurse came in pushing a wheelchair, breaking the awkward silence. If this counted as an awkward silence. It was only awkward for Booth.

'Okay, I've got your scripts here, and I'm giving you some information on seizures and also a referral to a specialist if you decide to get that checked out.'

Booth got up and took the bunch of papers, folded them and slid them into his pocket.

'Now Miss Brennan—' the nurse wheeled the chair around to the side of the bed, and touched her shoulder to get her attention. Brennan bristled at the contact but looked at the nurse. 'I need to get you in the wheelchair and we'll take you over to the ward.'

Brennan looked at the chair, and climbed down from the bed and sat down unaided. She wrapped her arms around herself and stared at her feet.

'Okay, lets take you over,' said the nurse far too cheerfully. She wheeled Brennan out the door and Booth followed, hanging behind.

The psych ward was on the top floor in another wing of the building, so they had to walk past the ED, the respiratory ward and the Pediatric unit to get to the right elevators. They piled into the lift, and rode up in silence, waiting for the bright 'ding!' announcing they were there.

Booth had never been up here, despite the number of times he'd been in the hospital visiting friends, interviewing suspects or for his own various injuries. The room itself was in the same layout as the floors beneath— there was a desk where two attendants sat with computers, phones and walls of files; about twenty chairs arranged together in small groups; and artwork that looked like it had been done by children, or else was so tattered and faded that it had to be older than him.

There were a fair few people in the waiting room, but unlike the waiting rooms down below, these people weren't shy of being themselves. A girl, not older than fifteen sat on the floor with a duffel bag, eating a tub of yoghurt and talking loudly on her phone. She was dressed in a bright button-up pyjama shirt, skinny jeans and a pair of rainbow converses. A guy, probably in his twenties sat stretched out across three chairs, with piercings in every visible part of his body and the rest covered in black clothes. He was quietly singing along to a Lady Gaga song playing on his ipod. Two middle-aged women sat up straight and primly in adjoining seats but were refusing to look at each other. A man was pacing the waiting room in bare feet and a hospital gown, muttering to himself, and an old woman was following a nurse, asking over and over if she could use the vending machine.

Booth took all of this in, then looked at Brennan. This place was better than he had imagined, but he was far from sure that Brennan should be here. The nurse had left her in the middle of the room and was now chatting to the staff at the desk about which doctor was working this shift.

Brennan looked completely unaffected by her surroundings. The old lady stopped following the other nurse, turned and stood and stared at her. Brennan remained oblivious.

'Doctor Collings? Yes, room 12A, he'll be expecting you,' Booth heard one of the staff behind the desk tell the nurse. They opened the secure door to the hallway to the right, and she pushed the wheelchair through. Booth slipped in behind and heard the heavy door thump closed and a metallic _click_ as the lock slid into place.

There were no patients in this hallway—all the doors were marked things like 'Lunch Room' and 'Cleaning Supplies' and 'Meeting Room 3'. Brennan's chair began squeaking. Booth suddenly felt like he was in a horror movie- the fluorescent lights passing overhead like white dotted lines on a road, the loud, rhythmic squeak of the chair and the nurse's slow march down the hall that went on and on.

Room 12A was right at the end of the hallway. The door was ajar and the nurse knocked loudly.

'Come in,' came a man's sing-song voice. Booth followed the nurse and Brennan inside. The room was simple, with just a few comfy looking chairs and a table with what Booth supposed was Brennan's file opened out.

'Hi, I'm Dr Collings,' he said, 'please, take a seat. Thanks, Nancy.'

The nurse nodded and left, closing the door.

'I'm one of the psychiatrists here on the ward, I practice privately on Mondays and Tuesdays, just in case you want to get in touch later on.' He turned to Booth. 'Forgive me, but you are…'

'Seeley Booth. She's my partner, she contracts out to the FBI.'

'Pleased to meet you. Now—' he looked from Booth to Brennan '—I hear Ms Brennan is catatonic after being held and abused by a terrorist, forgive me if I got the story wrong.'

Booth felt himself smile in spite at the tone of his voice of everything. 'No, uh, that's pretty much it.'

Collings turned back to Brennan. 'Ms Brennan are you able to tell me anything about what happened to you?'

Bones, whose gaze had been resignedly fixed to her feet, looked up, and Booth saw her blue eyes flash for a moment, but she stayed resolutely mute.

'She… she hasn't spoken,' Booth told the doctor. 'Not a word, since I found her.'

'Is that unusual for her, from what you know of her? To be quiet?'

'No, that is _definitely_ not like her.'

'I see from her file, that she tested positive for quite a potent cocktail of sedatives, hallucinogens, narcotics and antipsychotics.'

'Uh, yeah. She's been detoxing all week.'

'She has no history of drug abuse?'

'No. Absolutely not, the worst thing she's ever had is… is Bhang in India, and that was for research.'

'And she had a seizure last night?'

'Yeah.'

'Any triggers, any event that brought it on?'

Booth was silent for a moment. 'Yeah. She was… scared of me. I was trying to get her to drink, and I leant over to touch her face.'

'Interesting.'

"_Interesting"_, Booth thought_._ Was this guy channelling Sweets?

'There's usually room for discrepancy in diagnosing conditions like this. There's no blood test we can do, no one symptom that solidifies our decision beyond a shadow of a doubt. In Ms Brennan's case, I believe common sense is called for.'

Booth raised an eyebrow. 'What common sense is that?'

Dr Collings glanced at Brennan, who had gone back to gazing at the carpet. 'The exact story of what happened to her, we can't know unless she remembers well enough to tell us. The combination of drugs and her physical condition makes it clear that she was tortured—to what end, we don't know. While the drugs have certainly had their effect on her I would venture that the psychological trauma she went through is the strongest part of her behaviour. Blocking things out, shutting down can be an almost involuntary coping mechanism. She may have simply tried to… compartmentalise, and found she couldn't do it.' (At this, Bones visibly flinched.) 'There are many instances where a psychological problem expresses itself in physical ways, and the abuse she underwent in conjunction with drugs may well have been enough to make a previously strong and healthy woman… like this.'

Booth folded his arms and tightly gripped his elbows. Hearing it said like that had an effect on him, specifically his tear ducts. He glanced up at the ceiling and blinked a few times, hard.

'So, uh… what can we do for her?'

Collings considered Brennan again. 'That will largely depend on her,' he said. 'If she wants to talk about her experiences, that might help her get to the point where she can let go of them. I would not recommend medication at this stage, beyond what is needed for her physical symptoms, like seizures. However the first thing that will need to happen, is getting through to her, reaching her. Think of it as a thick wall of glass, where everything is hazy and far away. She will have to come out of that place of her own volition.'

'Yeah, but she isn't _doing_ that,' Booth said, a little more harshly than he meant to. He stared up at the ceiling again and blinked.

'I would imagine that is because she is still disoriented. She's in an unfamiliar place, has been hooked up to drips and machines, been given medicine—all of which would have occurred during her captivity. She may not know if this is reality or hallucination. I think the best thing to bring her back is the fairly mundane trio of time, love and safety.'

Booth looked at Bones, motionless and unresponsive. 'I… I can't take her home if she's afraid of me,' he said quietly. 'She doesn't recognise me.'

'Well, you don't know that,' said Collings. 'She may well _recognise_ you. However in longer-term kidnappings the victim will often imagine the people who mean most to them, both as they really are but also in a negative light—doing things like morphing into their captors or walking away and refusing to help them. She might look at you and see a malignant phantom of her own creation.'

Booth was quiet. He'd sort of known this already. But he couldn't have explained it. 'Should she stay here? Can't you… get through to her, get her to the point where she knows where she is?'

The doctor looked Brennan over again. She was now fidgeting with her hands and her eyes darted haphazardly all around the room. 'Once again, that will ultimately be her decision. Why don't you ask her.' He looked at Booth and motioned to him to ask her what she wanted to do.

Booth shuffled his chair closer so she could look at him more easily. He leaned forward, and her eyes darted about more frantically as he got closer. He froze and moved back. 'Bones. I'm here, you're at the hospital, back in D.C.. You need to tell me what you want to do. You can come home with me, or you can stay here in the psych ward for a while.' He looked at her pleadingly, waiting as the seconds ticked by, hoping she would respond.

'_Bones_. You have to tell me if I can take you home. Where do you want to go?'

.

Brennan jerked violently backwards and brought her legs up to her chest, burying her face in her knees and wrapping her arms around her head.

Booth couldn't help but let his eyes fill. By the time he realised he was crying, his cheeks were already streaked and wet. He turned away and dragged his arm over his face.

'She doesn't want to go home,' he said with finality. 'She doesn't know it's really me.'

Dr Collings gave him a few moments. 'We can keep her here overnight. Get a female doctor to talk to her in the morning. We'll give you a call tomorrow and let you know how she's doing.'

Booth nodded but didn't say anything. He'd just got her back, after so long, and now he was losing her all over again.

Collings picked up the phone on the desk and speed-dialled. 'Nancy? We're ready..…. No, staying here..…. My records show we have three empty rooms, sign her into 2B….. Great, thank-you.'

Almost immediately the door opened and the nurse came in to escort Brennan to her room. Booth stood up to go with them. 'Uh… thanks,' he said, not really knowing what to say. 'I'll just, I'll hear from you tomorrow.'

Collings reached out to shake Booth's hand. Booth let go quickly and followed Nancy out the door.

They walked all the way back down the hallway, through the secured door and into the waiting room. The two prim ladies were gone. The girl had taken her shoes off and was painting her toenails bubblegum pink. The old lady was watching a tiny tv near the ceiling with the sound off, her mouth hanging wide open.

Nancy wheeled the chair down the hallway on the other side of reception. At the far end was another secured door. Booth could see people moving around in the corridor on the other side through the window, but no sound passed over into the hall.

They stopped at room 2B and Nancy wheeled Brennan in. It was a pretty sparse room- a mattress with white sheets, a plastic chair and an empty chest of drawers.

'Up you get now, honey, go and sit on the bed,' the nurse said, locking the wheels and coming around to get Brennan to move. She just grasped her arm and tugged a little, and like she had back in the other ward, Bones complied and got to her feet, shuffled over to the bed and sat down.

'Any personal affects?' Nancy asked.

Booth shook his head. 'No, nothing.'

'Alright then.' She gestured to Booth. 'Well, come on, we'll let her get settled in, you remember the way back to the ground floor?'

'Oh. Yeah,' Booth said. He had no idea actually but it seemed like the right thing to say. Booth looked over his shoulder one last time as Nancy shut the door. He was going home. He made himself follow the nurse out to the lifts, not turning back.

.

Brennan sat in the silent, white room, staring unfocussed at the door. She could hear muffled footsteps going away from her. She opened her mouth, tried to form a word a couple of times but her voice was weak and scratchy from lack of use.

'.…Booth?'


	23. Chapter 23

Booth sat at the Founding Fathers nursing a glass of scotch. He was mad. And frustrated. And just plain lonely. Bones should be here. She should be here, right now, sipping a white wine and loudly telling him some story about a dead body that only she would obliviously bring up while people around them were eating.

But the stool next to him was empty, and the only thing that didn't feel cold was his throat as he drank the scotch. He finished it and asked for another.

Suddenly the chair beside him was taken—by none other than FBI Deputy Director Cullen.

'Booth. Fancy meeting you here.'

Booth gave a sorry excuse for a smile and nodded 'hi.'

'Actually,' Cullen went on, 'it's a good thing I did because I heard some very interesting information today.'

Booth raised an eyebrow. He'd heard plenty of sentences that start like this. If this was gossip about Bones…

'A certain vehicle, registered to one Marcus Flint was seen thisafternoon right here in D.C. outside the hospital.'

Booth rubbed one eye with the heel of his hand. 'Marcus Flint?'

Cullen snorted. '_Yes_, Marcus Flint. You remember—he took Broadsky's Jeep, sent you on a wild goose chase, got enough demerit points on his licence to have to buy a bicycle?'

'Oh. _That_ guy. Right.' Booth didn't know if he'd ever even heard the kid's name. Someone had probably said it but he was too wrapped up in the futility of the chase, and the fact that Brennan had been dangled right in front of him only to be snatched away.

'Well, since you're so well informed on your own case, I don't have to tell you that when Marcus returned to the car park after being questioned, his red Toyota was gone, that he notified police to be on the lookout for his number plate, and that in the footage taken today of the said same vehicle was being driven by a man who Marcus recognised.'

'Hang on. Flint saw the guy who gave him the one grand, in the shopping mall, who was _with_ Bones, driving _his_ stolen car.'

'That's right.'

'And I'm guessing from that look you're giving me that it wasn't Jacob Broadsky.'

'And that's why you're my best agent,' said Cullen. 'I'll selectively forget that you completely failed to inform yourself about Flint on account of you acting out Wuthering Heights.'

'You mean me, ah, bringing up my breakfast. Does that happen in Wuthering Heights?'

'No idea. Never read it.'

'Right.'

'So here's the camera footage,' Cullen said, sliding a manilla folder across the bench. '

Booth looked at the zoomed-in picture of the man driving. He was grinning unpleasantly. It was a bold move, to show up in a stolen car, right outside of the hospital. He had to know the FBI would find him.

He couldn't tell anything of his height, but he oddly reminded Booth of… a cross between Mr Hyde, a la Dr Jekyll, and his dentist. He wore small round spectacles and had a shock of black hair. Booth grimaced. He was imagining this guy cackling while removing his teeth with a screwdriver.

'Do we have an ID?'

'Of course we do. I didn't come all the way down here for nothing. Name is Yoseph Kraus. Has a handful of aliases, age forty-seven, migrated from Germany in the seventies. Has been linked, inconclusively, to half-a-dozen homicides. That we know of. Occupation dentistry.'

'Wow, my gut is right-on today.'

'Well you and your gut should get looking for this man, because young Marcus Flint reckons he saw this man with your scientist. And if I were you, I'd want to know exactly where this man is, what he's doing and who he's doing it with. And find something to nail him on, before he gets anywhere near your partner again.'

Booth picked up the picture. This could be the man who had tortured Bones. 'He knew we were at the hospital,' he said. 'He's watching us. And he's happy for me to know it… he's sending me a message.'

'Yeah? What message is that?'

'He's warning me to stay away from Broadsky. He's threatening to hurt Bones again, or other people in my life if I don't. It's a message from Broadsky saying 'back off'.'

Cullen picked up Booth's untouched second scotch and drank half of it in one gulp. 'Alright, then. Now you get cracking on this and it wouldn't hurt for you to send an update via COU once in a while.'

'Yessir,' Booth said. Cullen grunted, got up and left the bar. Booth looked at his half-empty glass and grimaced, shoving it away.

.

.

'You need to start opening up if you want to get better,' the woman was saying. Brennan wasn't really hearing it. Everything around her was so white, and glary. She needed sunglasses to sit in this room. Her skin felt dry and cracked, she just wanted to get out of the _light_. It was so bright…

'…. when you're ready to move forward,' the woman was saying again. Brennan wasn't really sure what she was saying. The words sort of wafted in and out, sometimes she could make out whole sentences but mostly it just sounded like noise. Noise that hurt her head. She wanted this woman to go away so she could hide under the sheets. Where it would be dark.

Brennan didn't know where she was, but she could not remember ever seeing this woman before. Why was she here? Was this another person come to do something to her? She didn't know, she couldn't think—couldn't _think_, and it was killing her.

_I'm good at thinking. Supposed to be. I used to…_

Brennan couldn't finish the sentence in her mind because now her head hurt more, and the woman was leaning over towards her, she didn't know why, so she leaned back.

'…just stand up for me, we'll go for a walk through the ward, you've been cooped up in here for hours…'

No. Brennan didn't want to walk— where was she going to go? Going out meant someone was waiting for her, and that was not good. She wanted to stay here, in this room. On her turf, if this could be called hers. She knew the layout of the room. She could kick or punch someone coming through the door. Maybe escape.

But the woman was standing back now, beckoning. 'Your muscles will be stiff, you'll feel much better stretching them out…'

_Stretching. _That's what she did before, another day… There was food, on a tray, and there was a noise and it was on the floor. And Booth was there.

_Booth._

Where was he? She wanted him to be here. Booth would come and get her, away from these people. But it had already been so long. What if he wasn't looking? She must have been gone for six months by now, had he just given up?

'_No._'

Brennan said the word brokenly, and the woman took a step back. 'Okay then. See, that wasn't so hard. You just have to talk to me.'

Talk? She didn't want to talk. She wanted to go home. To her apartment. To her lab. Or somewhere. Some days she thought she had just imagined all of that. Who even was she? She could be anyone. She didn't want to be here. Everything was just so _bright_…

The woman finally seemed to be going. Brennan curled up on the bed and pulled the sheet over her. If she was really still, maybe they wouldn't see her. They probably would, they always had. But for right now, for this moment, she was safe…

.

'She hasn't shown much improvement overnight, but she spoke. She said 'No' to Dr Leeds thismorning.'

'Are you sure it's a good idea for her to see me?'

Booth and Dr Collings headed up the hallway to room 2B. 'There's no reason to give up, there are any number of variables that could have made her react badly towards you. And, as you rightly pointed out, any reaction at all, good or bad, is an improvement over nothing.'

Collings knocked on the door and slowly opened it. Bones was lying in bed, her head covered by the sheet as if she was hiding.

Booth hated himself for the decision he'd made last night. How could he have left her here? He could see her shaking. She was all alone, again, in a strange place. If she didn't know who he was— if she was still scared of him— well, maybe that was better than being scared of everything. It was time to take her home.

'Bones,' he said, kneeling beside the bed. He carefully peeled the sheet back and found her looking straight at him. 'Hey. It's just me, you're alright. Let's go home, okay? Let me take you home.'

Brennan sat up a little, and before he knew what had happened she had flung her arms around him and buried her face in his neck.

'Whoa, there's my Bones,' he said, a little surprised. He reached behind and untangled her legs from the sheet, and stood up with her still clutching his shirt.

Collings smiled. 'I think this is going to work out quite well. It's preferable in a situation like this for her to be at home, somewhere familiar. I'll leave you two to find your way out, ask for me at the reception if you have any problems.'

Booth nodded and the doctor went back down the hall. Booth turned to the woman in his arms. 'Bones,' he said, kissing the top of her head. 'Come on, let's get you home.'

He eventually managed to get himself out of her grip without upsetting her, not that he minded but it would be extremely impractical to walk like that. He put an arm around her waist and held her there tightly, hoping it would reassure her. She slung an arm over his hip and grabbed a fistful of shirt to hang onto. Booth waved to the reception staff as they left the waiting room and got to the lifts. There was one already on the top floor. They stepped inside and Booth pulled Brennan into a hug with his free arm, revelling in the fact that she was slumped softly against him rather than screaming and running.

She seemed to be very tired, which was surprising given the amount of sleep she'd had the last eight days. The elevator stopped at the ground floor and Booth led her out and into the carpark.

If Brennan was disoriented or afraid of being outside, she didn't show it. She clung tighter to Booth's shirt, twisting it so it strained where she held it.

'Here we are, SUV 2.0. What do ya think, Bones? Like our new set of wheels? It's just a bit smaller than my old one, a newer model, though…'

Booth kept his voice soft and easy, knowing that change at this point was likely to upset her. He opened the passenger door. 'Alright, in you get, you have to climb up—there you go. I'll just get in the other side...'

Booth jogged round to the driver's seat. He was really winging it here, but he knew she found his voice soothing so he planned on talking to distract her. Even if she wasn't really listening. It didn't really matter. All that mattered was that he was taking her home.

'Angela had her baby,' he started, but Brennan visibly bristled at this. Booth wasn't even sure if she understood what he meant to be honest, if she remembered who Angela was. 'Hey, whoa. Everything's okay. I'm sorry you didn't get to be there, I know it meant a lot to you.'

Brennan settled, her eyes still wide and haunted. 'We'll go visit her soon—we can even go later today if you want to.'

She relaxed at this—she must have understood. Booth was amazed at the change in her. Just a few hours before, she was barely moving a muscle. And now he could see the emotions play out on her face as she felt them.

'I'm thinking we should go to my apartment, but if you want to go to yours that's fine too. Just let me know. I got some clothes from your apartment—well, actually Cam got some clothes from your apartment, because Angela wasn't really able to. And, I've got a stack of movies that you _need_ to be educated about. We're gonna have Pop Culture 101 when we get home, how does that sound? Also, we are ordering Thai, because I haven't eaten Thai for months, and I need some Tom Yam Kung.'

Brennan spent the rest of the trip gazing at Booth out of the corner of her eye and trying not to get caught. She wasn't very good at it, and it could have been out of nerves, hypervigilance, just plain missing him or all three, but it put Booth in a very good mood.

They pulled up at his apartment complex and into the parking garage. Booth shot Brennan a full-blown trademark charm smile, and the corners of her mouth tweaked upwards in return. He jumped out and managed to open her door at the same time as she did. 'I almost beat you,' he teased. Brennan just glanced up at him, then looked at where she was stepping and trying not to fall. She'd lost a lot of weight and a big part of that was muscle mass. She didn't have the amount of strength she was used to having, and she was constantly forgetting to compensate for the difference. She easily could have fallen and sprained something climbing out of the car if there wasn't someone there to spot for her.

Booth snaked an arm around her waist and walked her to the elevator and up to his floor. _Home._ Finally. He grabbed his keys and let them in. 'Here we go, Bones. Home-sweet-home a la Booth.'

He locked the door behind them and wandered in to the kitchen. 'Can I get you a drink or anything?' he asked, pouring himself some water.

Brennan shook her head, dazedly staring around the apartment. Booth quickly drank the water and came over to where she was standing, rooted to the spot.

'I think the only thing that's changed, since you were last here, is that I got those stadium chairs repaired,' he said lightly. 'Come on and I'll give you your stuff.'

He gently took her hand and walked into the bedroom, Brennan gliding airily along behind him, still drinking in her surroundings. She was dazed but no longer tense and wary, now that she was in Booth's apartment.

'Here you go,' he said, showing her a duffel bag of clothes and toiletries. Brennan stared at it blankly, as if she didn't understand what it was. Booth suddenly couldn't stand to see her so lost. Not Bones, the woman who'd examine a skeleton one minute then chase down a suspect without a gun. He pulled her in for another hug and after a few seconds, felt her relax and cuddle into him.

_Charm smile… check. Hugs, check,_ he thought. He tried to think of what else he could to make her feel better, but was somewhat distracted by her squeezing him tighter, as if scared someone was going to take him away.

'You're okay,' he soothed, rubbing her back. 'Come on out to the living room and we can watch a movie, hey? I'll even let you pick.'

He started to move and Brennan released her death-grip, instead grabbing onto his shirt again. Booth led her over to the couch and sat her down next to him in front to a big pile of dvds. 'Sooo. We've got… action movies, comedy, documentaries, romantic comedy… please don't choose that…uh, any of these look good?' He passed a few cases to her and she turned them over in her hands, gazing at the covers but not really seeing.

Booth sidled up against her since she seemed happier with something tactile to focus on. Namely him. She leaned into him and held up one dvd case. Booth wasn't sure whether she was giving it to him as her choice, or just staring at it, but he gently took it from her hand and decided he couldn't really go wrong. It was a David Attenborough documentary on whales. He'd borrowed these dvds from Hodgins and Angela, so he figured this was one of Hodgins', and the seventy million girly ones were Angela's. He got up, Brennan making a small 'oh' of disappointment, and slid the disc into the tv. He came back and sat beside Brennan, slinging an arm over her shoulder and letting her lean against him. He offered her the remote to play with but she didn't seem interested. She stared serenely as humpback whales chased after huge clouds of plankton, as they scattered schools of fish and arced majestically out of the water. They made beautiful underwater whirlpools of bubbles, like a synchronised ballet, and a vast colony of diving penguins swam around them. Booth smiled that she had picked something so _her_. He'd have to find a documentary on dolphins.

The doco went for an hour and a half, and Brennan was transfixed, though looking somewhat hypnotised. Booth was watching her only _slightly_ less than the movie. She seemed to be happy and wasn't having the strange shivering or rapid eye movements that had him so concerned.

Brennan continued to watch through the credits, and stayed staring at the screen as it went back to the menu. 'Here, you can put another one in,' said Booth, offering her a doco about volcanoes. She just gazed straight ahead. 'Orrr… we could watch it again.'

Brennan blinked and turned to Booth with wide eyes, as if to say 'we can?' Booth grinned, grabbed the remote and hit 'play' again. Brennan pulled her knees up to her chin and grabbed a cushion as the movie started.

Booth wasn't sure what to make of this. Normally Bones wouldn't read the same book twice, or do anything she felt to be pointless or a waste of time, especially with her near-photographic memory. He remembered when Parker was about three, having to watch the same movie of Spongebob over and over to the point of insanity.

Brennan curled up against the arm of the sofa and Booth got up to go order food. He decided not to ask her, just to get what he knew she liked and let her engross herself in the dvd. She looked calm and peaceful and he thought it was worth trying to drag that out as long as possible. He called up their usual Thai place and ordered four dishes—that way she could pick and choose what she felt like, and there'd be leftovers for tomorrow.

Brennan was in her own little world and Booth could watch her without her noticing. Sitting there swamped in his baggy gym clothes, balled up in a corner of the sofa she looked tiny. She'd lost a lot of weight, not that she was big before and it probably wasn't going to be easy to get her to eat, either. She had been in starvation mode for weeks, her body had adjusted to surviving on next to nothing.

Booth grabbed some milk, icecream and bananas and chucked them in his blender to make smoothies. Bones looked up at the loud noise, not processing what it was but Booth smiled at her and that seemed to reassure her. He took two glasses with straws over. Usually he'd crack open a beer, but he wasn't about to give her alcohol or tease her by drinking it in front of her.

Brennan had moved again and was now curled up on her side on the couch, the blue light from the screen reflected on her face. Booth set the smoothie down in front of her and started his.

Forty minutes later their food arrived. Since the movie was nearly over, again, Booth waited until it finished so he could pay better attention to her and hopefully make her eat.

'Here you go Bones, Pad Thai and stir-fry veges. And yes, you do have to eat at least… five mouthfuls,' she said grinning. Usually teasing her like this would get a rise out of her. He really wanted her to talk. She'd spoken once that he knew of— one word, but not to him. He tried to think of ways to do that while he served up some food onto her plate.

Brennan sat up and took the plate. As if on cue her stomach grumbled loudly. She glanced at Booth at the noise.

'Ha. See, I told you you were hungry.'

She picked up her fork and took a bite of noodles. Booth noticed her hands were not at all steady—she rested her plate on her knees but her right hand holding the fork was trembling so much she was having trouble getting it in her mouth.

Booth thought about just feeding her but really, she might find it upsetting if she couldn't do it herself. Bones valued her independence highly, it was what she had clung to when she had no one to rely upon but herself. Booth wanted to help without taking that away from her. He let her keep trying until she'd got two bites in, then reached around her and held her wrist. He could feel the shaking. It was less obvious when you looked at her from a distance, but once she tried to do something with her arm away from her body she lost all precision. He guided her hand back to the plate, speared some veges and brought it back up to her mouth. 'You move your hand, I'm just here to help you not shake,' he told her. She seemed more determined and drew her hand up more forcefully, making the shaking worse. 'Relax the muscles in your arm,' Booth told her. 'You guide me where you want to move and I'll do the lifting, okay?'

Brennan actually nodded in response. By just resting her hand in his the tremors lessened enough that she could get the fork in her mouth. Booth could feel her arm still spasming and vibrating, but she seemed to be otherwise okay.

When she'd got through a third of the food on her plate, Booth decided to give her arm a rest and gave her the smoothie. 'Lie back halfway Bones, just rest the drink on top of you and sip through the straw. No hand-lifting required.'

Brennan lay back like he suggested, and sipped at the smoothie, gazing at Booth, or at least, the air in front of Booth's face. Booth smiled at her, and lay back in the same way and drank the rest of his.

Brennan seemed to be falling asleep, so Booth took the empty cup from her and pulled her to her feet. 'So, if you want to go to bed… You can have the one in my room. I've got a camper bed I can set up. Do you want to get changed or have a shower?'

Brennan looked at him blankly. Had she heard a word he said?

'Do you want to go sleep?' he tried again.

'Oh,' Brennan said. Booth smiled widely at her.

'Hey, you said something!' He caught her eye and kept smiling until the corner of her mouth twitched up. He thought about hugging her but decided it was better right now to just make her smile. She let out a small puff of laughter and her smile grew wider.

'Okay,' said Booth, tearing his gaze from hers after a moment, 'we've got pyjamas in here somewhere…'

He was suddenly very glad he'd got Cam to pack Bones' clothes. He could only imagine what outfits would be in here if the task had fallen to Angela. He pulled out a navy tank top and some striped pyjama pants, then grabbed a pair of underwear without looking at them. He passed the clothes to Brennan and said, 'You go get changed. There's a towel hanging up for you if you want a shower.'

Bones sort of nodded, but only one nod, so it might just have been that she was sleepy. _She remembers how to shower right?_ Booth worried. _Cos if not I am definitely up a creek without a paddle_. She _had_ been bathed by nurses last time, and almost unconscious when Cam cleaned her up the night he rescued he. If she couldn't even eat...

She stared at the open door to the bathroom, and slowly moved towards it. _That's good so far_, thought Booth. She placed the clothes down on the counter and stared back out again at the open door. Booth had been just about to go and close it for her when she took the handle and pushed it shut. He didn't hear the water running. He figured he'd better stay in the bedroom where he could hear if anything was going wrong.

After a few minutes he heard the toilet flush and the shower turn on. That was a relief. At least she knew she was in there to shower.

The water ran and ran.

Booth didn't know if it was _stressful_ so much, waiting in his room, trying to read a sports magazine while listening out for anything that sounded bad, like a crash or a scream. It reminded him of how uber-careful he had been when Parker was young. However with Parker, he had been able to be right beside him on the seat next to the bathtub to stop him from accidentally drowning. This wasn't that easy.

It must have been twenty minutes. Bones said she usually opted for short showers, because it was wasteful of water, and… something else, killed tomatoes or pythons or something, he hadn't really been paying attention that day. He glanced at his clock and it said 8.30. She had gone in there just before eight.

Booth wandered over to the door and knocked. 'Bones?' he called. No response.

Should he go in? _She could have slipped,_ he told himself. He just felt uneasy, her being on the other side of this door and the water running that long.

'Bones, are you okay? I need you to call out and tell me, or I'm gonna have to come in and check on you.'

He couldn't hear anything but the running water. 'Bones?' he called out again as he opened the door just a bit. Steam came billowing out.

There was no reply so he stepped inside, seeing the faint outline of someone sitting on the floor through the steam and the droplets of water on the glass of the shower. She was just sitting there, not moving.

Booth grabbed the spare towel and opened the shower door without looking down and turned off the water. The spray petered out until the last vestiges in the pipe dripped down with a soft splat.

He opened the towel and put it around Brennan. She was sobbing hysterically with her face buried in her knees. Booth sat down beside her and pulled her against him, wrapping the now sodden towel around her.

'Bones.' The sobbing continued, though she was starting to breathe normally again. 'Hey. You're going to be okay, alright? You are. I promise.' He reached over for his towel which was dry and draped that one over her, throwing the wet one in the corner.

'Can you tell me what's wrong?'

She took a shuddering breath and stuttered 'I….. I don't know.'

Booth silently prayed 'thank you' that she'd actually spoken. 'Bones, you've gotta talk to me. You shouldn't be going through this by yourself.'

Brennan breathed heavily and swiped at her eyes, only succeeding in spreading water from the shower over her face. 'I… I… don't know,' she said again, looking at him pleadingly.

'I need you to tell me what happened to you,' Booth coaxed.

Brennan choked out, '_No!_'

'Bones…'

'I don't… I _don't know_.'

Booth looked at her. She looked apologetic. 'You don't _remember_,' he interpreted slowly.

She turned her head away and stared at the floor, and Booth knew he'd guessed right. She looked ashamed.

'Hey, that's okay,' Booth said encouragingly. Although it troubled him deeply to know that. He had just sort of assumed that yes, she was traumatised, but she'd be able to tell him exactly what happened so he could hunt down and kill every person involved. But not to remember at all…

Bones began to curl up tighter into a ball, so Booth got up and pulled her to her feet before she could set up camp for the night right there in his shower and refuse to move. Helping her secure the towel around her he grabbed her clothes and took her into the bedroom. 'I'll shut the door, you just get dressed and get into bed. I'm going to set up the camper bed, I'll be back in a minute.'

Booth didn't know why he had started telling her every little thing that was going on. He was just following his gut. It seemed to make her feel more relaxed, to have someone tell her exactly what would be happening next. Chances were she had lived in perpetual uncertainty for the long seven weeks she was being held.

Booth pulled out the camper bed and inflated it. He'd used it a couple of times going camping with Parker, and surprisingly it wasn't too bad on his back. He grabbed a couple of sheets and fitted the elasticised one onto the mattress. After five minutes he knocked on the door, and when no answer came (he wasn't really expecting one) peeked round the door to see Bones lying on her side, wearing the pyjamas. He dragged the mattress in and dumped it on the floor, then put on the second sheet and stole a pillow from the double bed.

He never went to bed this early, but he could see Bones was ready to sleep and he wanted to keep an eye on her. He remembered she should take her antibiotics before she dozed off and ducked out to the kitchen to get them and a glass of water.

He sat down beside her and she turned to look up at him. 'You've just gotta take this before you go to sleep,' Booth told her, showing her the pill.

Brennan flinched and sat up. She looked wary, scrunched her face up and stared at the pill in his hand.

'Bones, it's just an antibiotic,' Booth tried to placate her. She shook her head and shuffled over to the far side of the bed, determinedly looking away.

Booth sighed. 'I'm not going to make you take it, Bones. You're allowed to say no.' Booth wondered if she'd been made to swallow tablets by force. It was probably no wonder she didn't want to now.

He set it on the bedside table with the glass and moved round to the other side, where she was now, and climbed into the camper bed, dimming the lamp. 'Bones, I'm not going to give you any drugs that hurt you, okay? And I'm not going to force them down your throat.'

He wasn't completely happy about this. There were medicines that she would probably _need_ to take, like if she had another seizure. This one he was letting slide, because he needed to win back her trust more than he needed her to not get an infection. None of this was really about the physical stuff.

Watching her drift off to sleep, lying in her side, facing him and clutching a pillow—he was convinced that the woman he knew so well was still in there, somewhere. He just had to find how to bring her out.


	24. Chapter 24

Booth awoke a couple of times during the night to hear Brennan writhing around in her sleep, presumably having a nightmare. Just like when she was awake, she wasn't talking or making any sound vocally. Rather than wake her up, Booth reached over and found her hand, squeezing it hard until he felt her squeeze back. Once she did this, she seemed to settle back into a deep sleep.

He woke up at six the next morning. It was a Saturday, and one that he normally would have had Parker. He would have loved to go and visit him, but he thought Bones wasn't really ready for that yet. And there was that small issue of Yoseph Kraus, the evil dentist cruising around under their noses. He had no doubt that Kraus and Broadsky were keeping an eye on him, and he wasn't stupid enough to lead them straight to his son.

He climbed out of bed and wandered into the kitchen to make coffee and scrambled eggs.__He poured a juice for Brennan, still not wanting to give her food with chemical properties like caffeine. Not after she'd been pumped full of amphetamines and sleeping pills. Which, he thought on reflection, if given close together sounded like a nasty form of torture. He felt a rush of sadness for Bones, like he did every time he realised a little piece of what had happened to her. Added to the fact that in a round-about way, she had suffered because of him. He wished Broadsky had just taken him instead.

Brennan walked bleary-eyed out of the bedroom, her hair a little mussed from sleeping, and wandered over to the kitchen. Booth caught her eye and smiled at her, hoping to get a response, and sure enough the corner of her mouth tweaked up just a little. Booth switched the stove off and came round the bench to pull her into a hug.

He may have been making up for lost time. But after that night when she'd jerked away from him in fear—he felt he needed reassurance everything was still okay almost as much as she did. He tucked her head under his chin and breathed in her scent, feeling her slump softly against him.

On one level he was terrified by how changed she was. But at least now she was responding to him- talking, looking, smiling. And although she didn't say much, he felt they were communicating on a meaningful level— on the basis of what they knew about each other. He had always been the person she would turn to, but the level of trust and affection she was showing hadn't developed until at least three or four years of their partnership. She clearly knew who he was, and it ran deep.

'So we've got scrambled eggs,' he said, letting her go. 'Or toast, what do you feel like?'

Brennan followed him into the kitchen and looked at the saucepan. She seemed pretty fixated on it, so Booth scooped some up onto a plate and handed it to her.

.

He should have seen it coming. Her hands were shaking too much, and she dropped the plate. It smashed into hundreds of shards, omelette splattered all over the floor. Bones shrank back in shock, looked at her hands, and stumbled backwards. For a moment she was frozen—then she turned and ran back into the bedroom.

'Bones…' Booth stepped over the broken plate and followed. He got to the bedroom but couldn't see her. Then he saw the bathroom door was closed. He knocked and went to turn the handle, but it was locked. _Crap_.

'Bones, it's okay. It was just a plate,' he said, frustrated at himself for not remembering the trouble she had holding things. 'I'll just put it in the bin, it was an accident. I don't care about the plate.' Silence. 'Can you open the door?'

He was suddenly struck by what had happened the last time she'd freaked out. 'Bones,' he tried again, forcing himself to control his voice. 'Last time you got scared you had a seizure. I need you to open the door if you can, otherwise I'm gonna have to force it. If you want to have some space, that's fine, but I need to know that you're okay.'

He waited. After a few moments the lock clicked. Booth exhaled in relief. He opened the door slowly to see Bones curled up in the corner, eyes red. _Dammit_.

'Bones. It's not a big deal,' he coaxed, crouching down beside her. He didn't know why that had scared her so much. She'd knocked over a tray in the hospital and hadn't reacted at all. He reached out and rubbed her back. She'd stopped crying which was a good start.

'How about we go get you some more, I'll put it in one of Parker's plastic plates.' Bones looked up at him confused. 'If you drop it, it won't break. Nothing to worry about.'

This seemed to make sense to her. She nodded and let him pull her up. 'Why don't we go put on the whale movie while you eat,' he suggested.

Brennan looked like she'd be up for that so he walked her out to the couch and put the dvd in. She curled up like she had last night. He was a bit concerned that she wanted to watch it _again_ but at least she seemed happy. If you could call that happiness. Her good moods were like bubbles, they'd float along for a few seconds then burst and you'd have to blow more.

Booth got one of Parker's old baby dishes and piled in scrambled eggs and toast, then carried it over to her with the juice. He grabbed his plate and sat down beside her, deciding it might be good for him to stick around while she was trying to eat.


	25. Chapter 25

As the whale movie played and Brennan finished eating, Booth's phone rang in the bedroom. 'Booth.'

'Hey, Booth, it's Dr Sweets.'

Booth grinned— as weird and shrinky as the 12-year-old was, he'd somehow grown to like the kid. 'Hiya, Sweets, what are you doing working on a Saturday?'

'Oh this isn't, official FBI business, especially as you're not officially employed by the FBI.'

'So what's up?'

'I, uh, just wanted to see how Dr Brennan is going. I heard from Daisy that she's been in hospital, only receiving a few select visitors—'

Booth grinned. He bet Cam had told Daisy that to keep her out of there.

'Angela told me she was staying with you, I just… I wanted to know if she's okay.'

Booth sort of softened. After a couple of years, he'd decided the kid really wasn't so bad. He obviously liked him and Bones personally as well as professionally. It was kind of impressive that Bones had warmed up to him, despite her views about his chosen field.

'Yeah, I, uh… couldn't leave her there,' Booth sighed. 'I don't really know what to do, I'm just sort of… making it up as I go.'

'Well that was probably a wise decision,' said Sweet.

'A wise decision? I don't know, Sweets, she's— she hardly talks, she locked herself in the bathroom when she dropped a plate, she's watching the same movie, over and over…'

'Well… people can revert back to their childhoods when significant trauma—'

'Whoa-whoa-whoa, don't start shrinking us, Sweets. Come on, you know neither of us like that childhood crap. She's not doing that. Bones, she's just… _her_… and whatever I'm doing seems to be sort of working, so…'

'Well by being there for her you've given her something to latch onto.'

'Shut up, Sw—what?'

'No, really. This is probably the best thing for her. In some cases, talking through traumatic incidents with a professional is helpful but for real long-term recovery, often it is being cared for by someone, who genuinely accepts and sticks with them is what really makes things change.'

'Huh.'

'Think of it like… a ball of string, you with me?'

'Go on.'

'So, psychotherapy can sometimes untangle the knots. But what's more important is having a touchstone- an anchor, if you like- something to tie to so she doesn't float away.'

'Wait, why is the ball of string in the water?'

'It's a mixed metaphor.'

'Really.'

'_Anyway._ I'm just trying to say, that it's good for her right now to be with you. She needs like, familiarity, you know. It's common for people in situations like these to have trouble distinguishing between their memories, hallucinations or nightmares and reality.'

'Bones, she's not hallucinating. She de-toxed at the hospital.'

'But she probably has hallucinated during her time with Broadsky. She knows what it's like. Having experienced hallucinations, she's likely to still feel confusion now, even without being on drugs.'

Booth looked into the living room at Bones, still curled up watching tv. She never used to like tv. She found it a waste of time.

'Look, if she's up for it why don't you bring her over to the Hoover.'

'Sweets, you know I can't go to the Hoover, I'm COU—'

'Just come in plain clothes, you'll only be coming to my office. You'll have Dr Brennan with you, it won't look like you're in cahoots with the FBI.'

'"In cahoots"? It might…'

'I see no reason why you can't come in. Hey, if it helps we'll get the security guards to throw you out.'

Booth grinned. That would actually be pretty fun.

'You're just saying that cos you know how much I like going undercover.' Well, most of those times he was pretending to be together with Bones, that was sort of an incentive…

'That's partly true. But, come on, it's been like eight weeks and I've missed her too, you know. I want to help.'

Booth glanced over at Bones, still curled up watching the whales.

'She might be up for it. She hasn't really been outside for a week.'

'Well I'm free after—'

'That's okay, we'll just show up.'

'Hey, I do have other patie—'

'Bye, Sweets,' Booth grinned, ending the call.

'Booth? Hey Booth? You hung up didn't you,' said Sweets on the other line,

.

Brennan sat entranced watching the whales. She liked how they glided through the water, huge and slow but so graceful. She didn't really hear the commentary, but she heard the whales singing. That sound was so beautiful, and haunting. She couldn't tell if the whales were singing from happiness or sadness. It didn't really matter. It was just what it was- everything at once, something words could never fully explain.

She liked hanging out with the whales, just watching. They didn't have to talk to be understood. She liked that. She lay down and watched from a different angle. The world looked weird for a minute or two, but then her eyes adjusted and it was good again. The chair was so soft. For some reason that was really important to her. To be laying on something clean and soft. She might never get up.

The whales started jumping out of the water. She remembered this happened right at the end of the movie. It was going to be over soon. She didn't want it to end. Maybe she should play it again?

Suddenly Booth was crouching beside her. She opened her eyes wide and took a sharp breath in surprise. She hadn't heard him come over.

'Bones,' he was saying. He said other things but she just caught her name. She tried to focus on Booth. It was hard somehow, because she's just been focusing on the whales. Her head felt like it was full of concrete, and it just got slow and heavy and wouldn't move.

He was putting his hand on her shoulder. She relaxed. She was having trouble remembering, something bad had happened… but it was all a blur. She remembered pain, sharp things jabbing at her. This touch was different, it made her happy. She leaned in for more and Booth was putting his lips in her hair. Was he kissing her? The thought made her almost laugh. She felt happy now. Booth had some ointment and was stretching out her arm and rubbing in onto her wounds.

'I forgot to do this last night,' he was saying. 'I don't want you to have any scars…'

Scars. That word sounded familiar. She had no idea why. She thought about the word for a minute, turning it over in her mind, sounding it out in her head. She didn't know what she thought.

'I don't…' she suddenly said.

'Hey, what?' Booth was asking.

'I don't know,' she said.

'What don't you know?'

'I don't, I… I don't know.'

'You don't know what you don't know?' asked Booth with a smile. It was a huge relief to hear her talking, but he was trying not to make a big deal about it in case she got spooked and stopped.

She smiled back. '…..yeah.'

'See, I always understand you,' he said, looking downright cocky.

'Not always,' Brennan said back.

'Eh, close enough,' Booth shrugged, delighted to have got so many words out of her. 'How do you feel about going out to see Sweets?'

Brennan frowned. Sweets. Why Sweets?' He was….. he was a psychologist. She didn't like psychology. She thought it was imprecise. And stupid.

'You're pulling your scrunchy face,' Booth said. Brennan looked up at him. 'I think he just misses us,' he said, smiling confidentially, because this joke was just between them. 'He's probably trying to find an excuse to get us into his office.'

_Us_. Brennan pondered that. She would have thought, that with her being so… whatever she was… Booth would have said get 'you' into his office. Not 'us'. She sat up and leaned closer to Booth. She didn't know why.

'Do you want to go out though? Get some fresh air, some sunshine, do some walking…'

She didn't know. She didn't know what she wanted. She liked being _here_, but mainly because Booth was there. She gazed at him and shrugged.

Booth smiled at her. She smiled back, she didn't think about why. She just responded. He pulled her to her feet and started leading her to the bedroom. 'You're gonna have to get changed though. You're still wearing pyjamas.'

Brennan hadn't really noticed. She was conscious she was wearing _something_. She didn't particularly want to take the clothes off, even just to change, but Booth was holding a folded dress, bra and leggings out to her, so she took them and went into the bathroom.

Once she shut the door she looked in the mirror. She looked… she didn't really know how she looked. She didn't really care. She looked a little bit different, somehow. Her hair was a bit longer. She opened one of the bathroom drawers and looked for a comb, then ran it through her hair. Her fringe was hanging over her eyes so she brushed it to the side. She twirled her fingers around the longer strands and looked away. She didn't really like mirrors at the moment. She saw too much change. She wanted things to be the way they were before.

She pulled of the pants and tank top and put on the bra, leggings and dress. She felt clumsy doing it, but eventually got everything straight. She felt her head spin, and put up a hand to her temple, before stumbling out the door.

.

Booth was looking up at her. He looked… kind. She felt ambivalent about that. She suddenly hated this. She was angry, and frustrated, and just… hated everything. Booth saw the change and patted the bed beside him. Brennan didn't want to sit down because she was angry. But she also _did _want to sit down, because it was Booth. She compromised by sitting on the corner and facing away from him.

'What's wrong, Bones?' Booth was asking. _I don't know_, thought Brennan. But she mustn't have thought it very loudly, because Booth was still asking her to tell him.

'I can't…. I don't know why. I can't,' she said, looking over at him, pleading with him to understand.

He seemed to understand what she was trying to say. 'I know it's frustrating, Bones.' He paused, seeming to think he'd said the wrong thing. 'I mean- it's not frustrating to have you here, that's not—I didn't mean it like that…'

Bones didn't pick up on anything. She _was_ frustrated. Booth tried again.

'It's always frustrating when you can't do something you used to be able to do. When I was going to college, I was on a scholarship for football, and then I broke my knee.'

Brennan looked at his knee. She knew this story. She had seen his x-rays. The injury would have threatened his scholarship. 'I was really angry, it just felt so unfair. I went to the casino and gambled away my whole fortnight's rent, because I felt like I'd been thrown away, and for some reason I wanted be the one doing the throwing…'

Booth watched Brennan's face soften as he spoke. 'It worked out in the end, though,' he said. 'If I hadn't had the injury, I never would have gone into the army. I never would have joined the FBI. I don't know what I'd be doing… probably turn into some drunk loser like my father.'

Brennan shifted closer and shook her head a little.

'We wouldn't be partners if I hadn't broken my knee.'

Brennan didn't know that she was much use as a partner just at the moment.

'It's okay to hate it, Bones, anyone would. But don't stay angry for too long. Trust me, being angry and bitter doesn't work. It just makes you feel even worse.'

Brennan brushed her hair behind her ear. 'Okay.' Every time she used her voice it sounded strange to her. Like hearing your voice on voicemail, something not quite real, not quite yours.

Booth bobbed his head down to catch her eyes and smiled, keeping eye contact until and she gave a little smile back. 'So how would you like to come with me over to the Hoover?'


	26. Chapter 26

Bones grabbed her handbag, which Cam had brought over with her duffel bag of clothes. She looked so normal wearing it, Booth thought, although she insisted on holding onto Booth's sleeve or hand, and had the wariness of someone who's seen too much of the evil in the world. She wasn't wearing make-up, but after all the sleep she'd had last week and the food he'd been coaxing her to eat, she was regaining the colour in her face. He liked her hair longer, but didn't say so to her, because it had happened while she was away. And he couldn't think of anything from that period of time as being good.

Brennan followed Booth to the SUV, one hand gripping his shirt behind his back. He opened her door- noticing with a touch of sadness that she didn't put up a fight- and got in the driver's seat to pull the car out.

He missed arguing with her. It wasn't even arguing, really- it was more of a game. Arguments were hurtful, but bickering with Bones helped make them close. It made him feel like they were equals— putting each other in their place, repelled and drawn apart with equal force, like spinning magnets, yin and yang. When it was like that, everything balanced.

But, he thought turning onto the street—even without bantering, they still worked. They could speak volumes without using words. They could have a conversation across a crowded room as well as in the SUV. They somehow just _fit_.

He smiled as Bones sat twirling a pair of sunglasses in her hand. After playing with them she put them on, and watched the trees fly past out the window.

'Booth?'

He looked across at her. 'Yeah?'

Brennan didn't say anything, but looked like she desperately wanted to get something across. 'Booth,' she said again.

He reached over and put his hand on her knee but had to keep watching the road. 'You okay?'

Bones didn't say anything, just brought her legs up to her chest and stared straight ahead. Booth sighed in frustration. He wasn't annoyed at her, but he hated that she couldn't get her thoughts out. 'It's okay, Bones,' he said, not really knowing what else to say. He glanced across and she was staring at him sadly. 'Hey, we're nearly there,' he said, hoping that would be enough of a distraction.

They passed the Starbucks where Hacker used to buy his coffee (rumour had it he went somewhere else now), and pulled into the Hoover felt kind of weird being here in a t-shirt and jeans. He wanted to know what would happen with Broadsky's case, now that he had Brennan back, if he'd be back at the FBI officially. He intended to keep Brennan with him at all times to ensure her safety, and it would just be more practical if he could work from his office.

He took Bones' hand—he was liking being able to do that, and could see she liked it too. For both of them it was reassuring, to know that their partner was _right there_. They had had seven long weeks apart, with the fear of never seeing each other again.

They stepped into the elevator, and when the doors closed, it suddenly felt intimate. Bones sighed and rested her head on Booth's shoulder. He couldn't help but bring an arm around her, but when the doors opened on the next floor, they reflexively jumped apart. Booth chuckled at their behaviour and smiled at Bones, not wanting her to feel rejected, and she latched onto his arm as they got out on Sweets' floor.

A few agents stopped in their tracks as ex-Agent Seeley Booth strolled down the corridor with a recovered hostage attached to him, but Booth didn't really care about it. Brennan was walking as close to him as she could get. He guessed that being in this building with so many people around was overwhelming.

He stopped at Sweets' door and knocked. He didn't wait for an answer though, just swung it open.

Sweets had another patient in there, a bored-looking guy who was being assessed. Seeing who his guests were, Sweets quickly finished up. 'Hey, we're nearly done here anyway, just fill that out and bring it back to me next week.'

The guy shrugged and walked out, staring at Booth and Brennan as he passed.

Sweets got up as Booth shut the door and brought Brennan over towards the couch.

'Hiya, Sweets,' Booth said lightly. 'Miss us much?'

'No, I—yeah—wow, it's really good to see you back, Dr Brennan.'

Booth sat down and tugged Bones' hand so that she sat right beside him. She kept holding onto his arm and looked furtively around the room, as if this was all a bit much to take in.

'Wow, you guys look close,' Sweets said before he could stop himself.

Booth glanced at Bones to see if she would react to that but she didn't seem to notice. 'Yeah well, I'm keeping her close until Broadsky is dead or in jail,' he said darkly.

'Oh. Yeah, of course.'

Brennan was fidgeting. She tucked her feet up onto the couch, and leaned a little onto Booth. He extracted his arm and wrapped it around her, taking one of her hands in his to try and soothe her. He noticed her breathing was fast and shallow.

'You okay?' he asked quietly. Brennan nodded and put her head on his shoulder, closing her eyes. Booth waited a while till he could feel her breathing settle before he turned back to Sweets.

'Wow,' Sweets said. He'd never seen Brennan behave like this. His eyes scanned over the angry slashes and abrasions on her arms and forehead. Her wrists had formed itching scabs from the handcuffs she'd been locked into. Booth had to rub oil into them a couple of times a day so she wouldn't unconsciously scratch at them. She'd lost enough body mass to look fragile and waif-like, and she seemed to barely know where she was. But she seemed happy to stay next to Booth.

'How are you feeling, Dr Brennan?' he asked.

Booth waited a moment to see if she would respond. 'Bones doesn't really feel like talking right now,' he said for her.

'Oh okay. That's fine,' Sweets assured them. 'How, um, have things been going, since you got back?'

Booth didn't exactly know how he wanted this meeting to go. On one hand he wanted Sweets to tell him what was wrong and what he could do, but at the same time, he didn't want to gang up on Bones with Sweets, even if she barely realised, out of loyalty to their partnership. He wanted to stay in her corner.

'She was at the hospital for eight days,' Booth said steadily. 'She was asleep for most of it, but she didn't need any surgery. She came out of it pretty well,' he added, glancing at her with a touch of pride. He didn't so much mean that she came out healed and well, but that he could see how much strength she had, to have been abused to such a degree, to have fought on for that long. Someone less strong might not have survived.

'She got a lot of rest, was sleeping for about a week… went through detox, got some of her bigger wounds and abrasions treated. She's eating a lot better.'

Sweets read between the lines, knowing there was a lot Booth wasn't saying explicitly. Obviously, she hadn't been eating, but was starting to again. And he'd heard she was put in a coma. He could see the cuts and scabs all over her arms and feet, and could easily guess what had rubbed her wrists and ankles raw. It painted a pretty frightening picture of what those seven weeks must have been like for her.

'I hear you've been watching a whale movie,' Sweets said, trying to engage Brennan again. She didn't respond, except to turn a little further into Booth. Booth began subconsciously rubbing his hand along the side of her ribcage.

Sweets was stunned at the change in Brennan, but he noticed Booth didn't seem at all surprised. He was handling this like it was completely natural.

'I can see you're doing a great job, Agent Booth.'

'I'm not an Agent,' Booth reminded him.

'Right. Booth then.' Sweets just observed them for a few moments. 'She's… less aware of her surroundings,' he commented. 'She can't always process what she experiences, so she's relying on you to sense things for her. You can see her eyes moving around rapidly, she's lacking control over her muscles. Is her pulse fast?'

Booth almost resented Sweets for vocalising these things, but he picked up her hand and took her pulse. 'It's a little fast,' he said.

'You can probably guess a lot of this is PTSD.'

Booth nodded. He'd had some experience of that from his time in the army, himself a little bit and he knew a lot of guys who were worse.

'Has she said anything about what happened to her?'

'I don't think she remembers much,' he said softly. Brennan blinked sleepily and gazed at the wall.

'It may not be possible to isolate what each of the symptoms is caused by, even if we _did_ know exactly what she went through.'

Booth didn't say anything, just listened to Sweets while keeping his arm around Brennan to feel any changes in her muscles or breathing.

'Cam told me she was given a lot of illicit drugs, so I imagine that's responsible for some of her symptoms. She's still tired after a week in hospital, indicating she's been through a lot mentally as well as physically,' Sweets observed.

'Yeah, well she's a fighter,' Booth said, suddenly defensive.

'Yeah, she is,' Sweets agreed quickly.

He could sense the solidarity the partners had, connected and protective of each other, even with the changes in Brennan. In fact he thought they seemed stronger as a unit, sitting here in front of him, than he'd ever seen them.

Now that Bones was here, Booth wanted to ask Sweets… well, a lot of things. Whether he was doing the right thing by keeping her with him. Or why she had so much confusion and seemed so different. Or why she wouldn't talk. He felt conflicted about asking, because he was volunteering information that really belonged to her, not him. Sitting with her there, her head trustingly laid on his shoulder, he felt that responsibility heavily. To do what was best for her until she could do it for herself.

Sweets must have picked up on this conflict too. In the past he had thought of Booth and Brennan as fascinating subject matter for a book, or a dynamic to observe and deconstruct. But with them sitting there across from him so quietly… he only cared about helping his friends.

'Do you think… it's best for her to be with me right now?' Booth asked slowly. 'Not in the hospital, being treated.'

'No, I definitely think she should be with you,' Sweets said. Booth waited for him to go on.

'Based on what I can see, the most important thing she needs at this point is to feel safe. Otherwise she's going to be hyper-vigilant, be constantly pumped full of adrenaline, which does wicked crazy stuff to your body in high concentrations over a long period of time. She's responding to you, and you seem to know intuitively what she needs. She wouldn't get the care and attention you can give her in a hospital. I think she'd probably get worse.'

'Yeah, okay,' Booth said, relieved. He vividly remembered picking her up from the psych ward that morning. How he'd found her hidden and shaking, and had practically carried her out. If she really had to go in there, he would probably only agree if he was allowed to stay there with her.

He kept running his fingers along the side of Bones' ribcage, which she obviously found comforting. Sweets was about to say that since they were both quite tactile people, this arrangement was much better than Brennan being locked away alone in a cold hospital room. But he thought that if he said that, Booth would shoot him in the head.

'Hey, why don't we wrap this up for today,' Sweets said, knowing that the partners took their psychobabble in small doses, and Brennan was looking tired. 'I heard from Caroline Julian that Cullen wants to catch up with you.'

Booth chuckled. Caroline Julian was probably _responsible_ for Cullen's wish to see him. 'Do you know when he's free?'

'Uh, hang on.' Sweets picked up his desk phone and dialled an extension number. He asked the secretary on the line and hung up. 'About half an hour, actually, she's booked you in.'

'Great.' Booth didn't want to hang around here all day if he didn't have to, not with Brennan only just out of hospital. 'See ya, Sweets.'

'No worries guys. Let me know if I can do anything.' He was referring to either personally or with the Broadsky case, which Booth understood. Booth raised a hand as he took Bones out and back to the elevators.

There were a few onlookers, word obviously having spread that Booth and Brennan were back. Rumours had been flying thick and fast over the last two months. Half the Hoover thought Booth's sacking had been faked, and the other half thought he'd gone to the dark side and joined up with Broadsky. Either way, Booth accounted for a lot of lost productivity by people congregating around water coolers.

Brennan was looking more and more tired. She felt her head spin as they walked. She wanted to just lie down somewhere, but she didn't want to be away from Booth. 'You okay?' Booth asked as they got out on his floor.

'Uh.' Brennan wasn't really talking but Booth knew she needed to rest.

'Hang on.' He knocked on the door of his old office, and Genny Shaw called out to come in. She smiled brightly when they entered—she hadn't seen either of them for over a week.

'Hello,' she smiled, getting up from the desk. Booth noticed that his office was almost exactly the same. Shaw's name plate had replaced his on the desk, and her case files were there, but none of his gear had been touched.

'Wow, it's like I was never gone,' he said.

'Well I said I was just minding it for you, sir,' Genny shrugged. 'How are you, Dr Brennan?'

'She's just going to lie down for a while,' Booth said, helping her get settled on the sofa. She was nearly out to it. He got her a cushion for a pillow and sat down in front of her stomach so she would feel safe enough to sleep.

'Oh… did you want to talk outside?'

'No, this is fine,' Booth said. 'Although… could you ring Cullen, ask if he can come down here. Bones needs to stay with me and I don't want to move her.'

'Oh,' Shaw said, a bit surprised. She wasn't in the habit of asking her boss's boss's boss to essentially come to her. But Booth seemed pretty confident he would come, so she dialled his number and explained to the secretary. 'We have a recovered hostage, she's traumatised and Agent Booth doesn't want to move her… yes… great, thank you.' She turned to Booth. 'She's letting him know.'

'Good. So, how are we going with Broadsky?' He checked to make sure Brennan wasn't disturbed by them talking about her captor, but she was too tired to register what they were saying.

He actually hadn't really thought about Broadsky much in over a week. Once he had Bones back, he didn't want to know about anything else. But now that she was at least safe with him, and he knew her recovery wasn't going to be overnight, he needed to focus on bringing him in. There was nothing to stop Broadsky from killing again, or even going after Bones a second time. He needed to close this case and put the guy away.

'I know Cullen's told you about Broadsky's associate, Yoseph Kraus,' Genny said, passing Booth the file.

'Yeah, I heard about that. Has anyone seen him since?'

'There was another camera that picked him up on the same day, heading west, but he wasn't dumb enough to keep using the same stolen vehicle.'

'Yeah, well, he wasn't afraid to let us know loud and clear that he's a main player in the game,' Booth said.

'Yeah, it's like he's letting us know that Broadsky's got allies, and they're not afraid to make themselves known.'

'Do we have the vehicle?'

'Yes, it was found a few miles away from the last traffic camera, it's being checked by forensics for evidence.'

'Oh okay, any results yet?'

'Oddly enough, a pine needle,' Shaw shrugged. 'But we already know where that would have come from. It matches pine needles we got as evidence from where we found your partner.'

Booth brushed hair out of Brennan's eyes, she looked pretty out of it, close to being asleep. He left his hand absently stroking her hair as he thought about the case.

'What did we get from the phone and the crime scene, anything useful?'

Genevieve shook her head dismally. 'We sent another team out the day after and canvassed the area, a mile in every direction. We couldn't find any evidence relating to Broadsky, Leisinger, Kraus _or_ Brennan. It was like he used the site for the sole purpose of returning Brennan to you.'

'Do we have anything to go on?'

'The case has gone pretty cold.'

'Maybe it's time to ferret him out,' said Booth darkly.

'How are you going to do that?'

'Give me time,' Booth grumbled, 'I'll think of something. I really, really hate this guy, have I said that?'

'You might have mentioned that once or twice,' Genny said very seriously. Booth leaned back a little, feeling Brennan respond and press up against him in her sleep. Genny very politely didn't comment.

The door to the office opened and Cullen walked in, glancing at the occupants of the room. He stared for a moment at the touching scene of Booth and his partner (and like Genevieve, chose not to comment) before pulling himself up a chair and putting on his spectacles.

'I see you've got Dr Brennan back, how is she?' he asked gruffly. Booth didn't mind Cullen so much. They'd grown sort of distantly fond of each other, ever since the partners had tried to save his teenage niece who had bone cancer.

'She's… she's been through a lot,' Booth said simply, not really needing to go into details.

'Alright,' Cullen said, deciding to leave that one alone and get on to business. 'So in the last eight weeks, Broadsky has not instigated any threats, kidnappings or appearances aside from the phonecall that led you to Dr Brennan.'

Booth nodded, leaning forward a bit with his elbows on his knees. Brennan shifted restlessly behind him and he rested his hand on her forehead again.

'In my opinion, Broadsky was a greater threat when he had the leverage of a hostage. Now that she's back I'd like to see you quietly reinstated. I think the time for treading carefully has passed- I want the bastard brought in.'

Booth agreed. 'His trail is still cold, though. Shaw's team have been covering all traffic feeds and responses to the media alerts.'

'Well that's the other part of why I wanted to see you,' said Cullen. 'We have a third player.' He pulled out an A4 photograph out of his file and handed it to Booth. It was of an elderly man with short white hair, a twisted smile and the palest, creepiest eyes he'd ever seen. _Man, sometimes the bad guys just LOOK evil_, thought Booth.

'Meet Victor McCullough, ex-CIA.'


	27. Chapter 27

**A/N**

**Hey guys, just a few things I wanted to say. First, your reviews are awesome and thanks so much for the feedback, it's so encouraging :o) Second, these 2 chapters are really short, but I sort of liked having the break in there. So you're getting two. And then I'm posting another one, so that's like 4 in one day. In Australia time. Heh. **

**Apart from that, just like, nitwit, blubber, oddment, tweak. That's about it. Happy reading!**

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.

'Meet Victor McCullough, ex-CIA.'

Booth looked at the picture, then showed it to Shaw. 'I'm guessing you have a good profile on this guy,' Booth said.

'Would I come down here without a good reason? –I have a history on this guy as long as your arm. Everything from war crimes to arson in his younger years, and this is where we walk the line between fact and conspiracy theory. Under freedom of information acts, we have —the very few surviving, mind you—documents about CIA Project MKULTRA.' Cullen looked up from the file at Booth to see if he knew what that meant.

'MKULTRA… I've heard of that but tell me again.'

'McCullough was a brilliant young chemist-turned-psychiatrist in the 1950s, recruited by the CIA for a classified and illegal project involving human experimentation.'

Booth looked away. He had wanted to know what happened to Bones but now, he didn't quite know if he could handle to hear it.

'Mm,' he said, when Cullen paused.

'The aims were to investigate mind-control techniques, this is all in the climate of the cold war, against North Korea and Russia and so forth. Went until the late 60s, so McCullough would have been involved for a good ten years. So we're talking hypnosis, drugs and chemicals, isolation, torture, psychological abuse, sensory deprivation, that sort of thing.'

_That sort of thing_, thought Booth fuming. 'Tell me where he is,' Booth said, his voice pretty deadly.

'I can tell you where he _was_,' said Cullen. 'This guy's been wanted for decades, he's most likely been out of the country but thismorning, I got a phone call from an old conspiracy nut who claimed he saw the guy at the national mall. Took a few photos which we ran through the system and it was a match.'

'How did you link him to Broadsky?'

'Well that's what really takes the cake. This next photo shows another man, and you can guess who that might be.'

Booth groaned and put his head in his hands. 'Broadsky. We nearly _had_ him? He was just what, hanging around the mall?'

'He's even cockier than you, Booth, walking around D.C. in broad daylight.'

'This is one of the guys who held Bones.'

'Well we don't know that conclusively. We know Kraus was with her at one point of course, thanks to that spectacular car-chase all over the news last month.'

'I do what I can.'

'What we do know is that these two together pose a much more serious threat than Broadsky alone. If they're…'

'In cahoots?' Booth offered.

'Shut up Booth – well, I'd say there's an endgame bigger than a single kill or some ransom money. These guys are sociopaths. They torture for fun.'

Booth glanced down at Brennan, who was thankfully asleep and not reliving horrific memories. 'So we've got three bad guys to bring in,' he said.

'Looks like you just got re-hired. Now get your name-plate out and do some work.'

Booth nodded as Cullen got up to leave. 'And Booth.'

'Yeah?'

'I've got Caroline Julian on my case to give you a free pass on inter-organisational dating. I never want to have that conversation with her again so bloody get on with it. Are we clear?'

Booth raised his eyebrows. Cullen huffed and shuffled out. Brennan rolled over in her sleep and Genevieve failed dismally at keeping a straight face.


	28. Chapter 28

After double-checking that Bones was sleeping deep enough for him to get up from the sofa, Booth found a spare coat he'd left behind and draped it over her, then he and Genevieve set about sorting out his office. 'Sorry to kick you out,' Booth said genuinely. 'You've earned your temporary promotion fair and square.'

'It's okay, I'm sure old Stennings with the coffee machine is about to pack it in, we got two phones and a location but his team never found so much as Broadsky's old toothbrush…'

Booth and Shaw collated their case notes and spoke directly to forensics for an update on the stolen car. Booth got hold of McCullough's file and started reading through it, and though the partial information left gaping holes in the story, most of it was too horrible to read through, seeing as it was so personal to him, that he ended up getting Genevieve to summarise it for him. _He_ wasn't going to cope if he imagined the disturbing details of psychopaths systematically breaking down his partner. He was going to need a bit of time to process the idea before he was ready to read those files.

In lieu of having an actual lead—their team was put to work running McCullough's picture through all the footage they could get their hands on—Booth was forced to turn to the next best thing. His own, personal, real-life conspiracy buff. Hodgins.

'And it's Hodgins to the rescue once again,' said the etymologist. 'King of the…. Well, not the lab….'

'King of the nuts?' suggested Booth.

'Hey, but I'm not as bad as I used to be,' he said into his phone from the lab. 'Angela kind of insisted that I keep my mad ravings to myself. But seriously, I'm your best resource yet on all things conspiratorial. I've got a near eidetic memory, can recall thousands of facts on cue, _and_ I've put my considerable resources to work in the past finding out information no one is supposed to have.'

'I bet,' said Booth dryly. Was he mad to have asked Hodgins? If not he was probably going to _go_ mad.

'Anyway,' Hodgins said, 'I can get you some background information on this Victor McCullough guy, and he sounds nasty, I hope you bring him in cos I'd personally sleep better at night.'

'Good, you get onto that and let me know. Hey, I'll bring Bones round to see Angela some time.'

'Yeah, she'd love that. See ya.' They disconnected the call and Booth called a junior agent in to go find the guy who'd taken McCullough and Broadsky's picture on the Mall, and bring him in for Booth to question.

An hour later Booth was in the interrogation room with the old man. Brennan was still on his couch and Genevieve was staying with her in case she woke up.

He'd been drinking a coffee and in between games of chess with a friend, when he saw McCullough and recognised him. He had a mobile phone with a camera, something his granddaughter had taught him how to use, and zoomed in to snap a few shots. The two men had taken off after that ('Yeah, Broadsky has a sixth sense about photos,' Booth told him), and he saw them driving away a blue sedan.

Booth got his team onto traffic cameras from the area an hour either side of when the witness had seen them. By five o'clock, Booth was back in his office, waking up Brennan to take her home.

'Hey,' he said when she rubbed her eyes. She blinked a few times and sat up, leaning towards him while she got her bearings. She was in Booth's office. At the Hoover. She'd fallen asleep.

Booth helped her up and said goodbye to Shaw as they left. After a day of essentially imagining what horrific things she might have been through, it was good to just be spending time with Bones again, knowing she was safe now. She always had a way of countering his bad moods— she'd say or do something quirky and honest, and it would somehow make things okay.

She was still drowsy from sleeping and leaned against him in the elevator back to the SUV. He got them in the car and headed for the diner. It was still dusk and he thought he'd take her to the Jeffersonian gardens to eat, knowing she loved it there.

He pulled up outside the diner and took her in with him, not prepared to leave her alone in the car even for five minutes with not one, but three sociopaths on the loose. Bones tagged along only slightly less sleepy, and sat at their usual table while Booth ordered. It was good to be back here, somewhere normal. Brennan was quiet but seemed pretty happy, as long as Booth was close by. They just sat and waited at their table til their order came, Brennan not in much of a mood to either talk or listen, then when their food arrived Booth took them back to the car.

It was strange, Bones being scared and clingy, but Booth was just glad that she was doing what she needed to do instead of fighting it. He knew better than to hurry her up. When she was ready, she'd talk, and when she was ready she'd be more like herself. He figured he might as well enjoy this while it lasted.

'Okay, out ya get, Bones,' he smiled, grabbing their food. Brennan hadn't been back to the lab yet, and it felt pretty good to be at her favourite place, even just the gardens outside it.

'House of reason, roses _and_ a sunset,' Booth observed as they picked a bench. He handed Bones a vege-pattie burger and a juice, and put a carton of fries on his lap where she could reach. He smiled when she reached over and took one. Every little thing she remembered was good. He grabbed a second chip, reached his arm around her shoulders and popped it in her mouth. This earned him a laugh and she shifted closer, and stole another one.

'Hey leave me _some_, Bones,' Booth said. She grabbed another one. He smiled. This morning he'd been worried about Bones not being herself, and the change in their dynamic. But she was showing him now that she was still her. And this was about as close to bickering as they could get.


	29. Chapter 29

Brennan had fallen asleep again shortly after they got home, managing to get changed and brush her teeth first. Booth worked on his computer for an hour or two, leaving the lamp in the bedroom on for her so she wouldn't be in the dark. When he decided to go to sleep, he stood and watched her for a minute in the doorway, before flicking off the lamp and climbing into bed.

.

Booth woke up at six the next morning. He sat up and looked over to the bed to see Brennan still fast asleep. He hadn't woken up during the night, so he didn't think she's had a nightmare—he was quite a light sleeper and would almost certainly have heard. _I have to take her to that appointment today_, he reminded himself. Booth made his bed and went out to make some breakfast.

Usually Booth would have gone for a run in the morning, but he wasn't going to leave Brennan unguarded. Broadsky had made the choice to return her to him, for some reason, so in a sense it was unlikely that he would take her again. But there was no way Booth was prepared to take that risk. He would either be with her at all times, or if he was doing something dangerous, she would be taken somewhere safe like the Hoover or the lab. Until Broadsky was put away.

He put on some music- he chose an old Beach Boys cd, the volume low enough not to wake Bones up but he thought it set a relaxing atmosphere. He grabbed a bottle of pancake mix and started pouring them into a hot frying pan.

Twenty minutes later he had a steaming pile of pancakes, some cut up banana and maple syrup. There was no sign of Bones emerging from the bedroom so Booth took in the two plates. She was unlikely to drop the plate if she was sitting in bed.

She was just barely awake. She blinked sleepily when he came in and sat down next to her. 'Hey Bones, how did you sleep?'

Brennan pushed herself on her elbows into sitting cross-legged with the sheet still wrapped around her. Booth carefully settled one plate on her lap.

'I cut yours up,' he said. Brennan blinked again and rubbed her eyes, then picked up her fork and speared some pancake.

She seemed to be better co-ordinated today, and managed to get most of it in her mouth with no help from Booth. He was concerned about the shaking and wanted to ask about it at her appointment today but for now he was focusing on just getting her to feel happy and safe.

After eating about half of it she put the fork down and started fiddling with her hair. Booth took that to mean she'd had enough. 'You want anything else, Bones?' She looked at him but didn't reply, so he took the plates back out to the kitchen, then came back in to see about getting dressed.

'So what do you want to wear today?' he asked her, putting her duffel bag next to her on the bed. Brennan glanced tenuously up at him, then at the bag. She didn't open it so after a few moments Booth sat down next to her and unzipped it. 'Here you go. Pick out some clothes you want to wear.'

Brennan sat there for a moment, then opened her mouth as if she was about to say something but couldn't get it out. She looked at the bag and then looked at Booth, so kindly sitting there trying to help her, but she just couldn't… she turned away, her eyes starting to burn. She couldn't do this. Why was he so nice?

Booth watched her struggle, going to reach for the bag a few times then changing her mind and pulling her arm back. She stared down at the bag looking upset. Booth didn't know what was upsetting her. All she had to do was pick. Why couldn't she do this?

He helped further by pulling out a few clothes for her to see, but she just stared at them blankly. She was looking overwhelmed, so rather than letting her get more distressed Booth just picked out a top and some jeans for her, putting the rest away. On second thoughts he pulled out a bra too. It looked as if he'd have to think of everything.

'You're okay, Bones. Go put those on,' he told her quietly, not knowing what to make of this. Still sniffing and biting her lip, she went into the bathroom and shut the door.

Booth was trying to work out patterns in how she was acting. She remembered how to do things, but she found decision making stressful. She was highly intelligent, but she didn't seem able to concentrate.

Booth quickly changed into jeans and a t-shirt, sure he'd be finished well before she came out. After a few minutes the door opened and Brennan came out and put her pyjamas on the bed. She'd neatly folded them.

She turned to Booth, looking unsure and apologetic. He quickly walked over and slid an arm around her waist, guiding her out to the living room. She obviously felt confused and discouraged about freezing up, and she didn't know why it had happened.

The Beach Boys album was still playing softly and it seemed to have a soothing effect on her. 'You've got an appointment at the hospital in a while,' Booth said as he wandered to the bench grabbing his keys, wallet and phone to put in his pocket.

'You wanna go get a coffee? We might go decaf,' he asked her. Bones didn't reply but just came over to him and took hold of his arm. She didn't seem to want to talk today.

He sensed she needed a hug for reassurance so pulled her close for a minute. 'You ready to go?' he asked. She nodded into his chest so he headed out to the street with her.

Brennan had two appointments, one a physical checkup with a GP and the other seeing Collings at the psych ward. Booth really didn't like that place.

He found a park at the medical centre and took Bones in to get a blood test done and the more significant wounds re-dressed. Everything looked fine so they headed across to the hospital.

Booth remembered the way to the psych ward. Brennan was just relieved to not have to find her own way there, her head was beginning to ache for some reason, it felt like it was building up pressure. She touched her hand to her temple but it did nothing to relieve the pressure.

Booth guided her into the waiting room, she seemed to be getting dizzy and having trouble seeing where she was going. He found her a seat and let reception know they were here.

'You okay, Bones?' he asked, sitting down next to her. She nodded without thinking, as she clearly wasn't. Booth got up and grabbed her a water from a dispenser. A few minutes later Collings called them in.

'Booth, Ms Brennan, good to see you.' Brennan didn't respond, still clutching her head. They went into his office and took a seat. 'How are your symptoms going so far?'

Bones wasn't up for talking so Booth filled Collings in. 'I don't know what's going on, she has muscle tremors, she hardly speaks…' Booth was just frustrated today. He was in over his head. 'Am I even doing the right thing?' he deadpanned.

Brennan moved a little with another tremor. Or it could have been a flinch. It was hard to tell.

'Cognitive difficulties like problems with speech, concentration, daily tasks, decision making, memory loss, even the headache you can see she has are all within normal symptoms for someone in Ms Brennan's situation,' Collings said.

'Can't you, I don't know, give her something to fix it? I mean Bones, she's… she's a genius IQ. She shouldn't ever have trouble thinking, it's just not her.'

'Well the FBI report you sent me says she was likely in contact with a Mr Yoseph Kraus and a Dr Victor McCullough, in addition to Broadsky,' Collings said, indicating his computer. 'Men who are both strongly linked to illegal human experimentation and torture.'

Now Booth was the one to flinch. 'And that's why I'm working to bring them in.'

'The cognitive problems she's experiencing aren't anything to do with her intelligence, they're symptoms of being under duress. Blood flow to the brain, muscles and digestive system are often altered under stress, and it's very likely they will improve. As for what is best for her right now, I wouldn't like to see her staying here. We can treat her as an outpatient for PTSD but in terms of her day-to-day, I can see she's responding far better to you than she has to any hospital staff.'

'Well she knows me.'

'Which is an important difference. Look, the likely scenario we're presented with is she's undergone torture by at least one sociopath trained in psychological warfare, so there are going to be problems.'

'Well, yeah.'

'When she's ready to talk about what happened, psychotherapy can help to untangle the knots. But what's ultimately more impactful right now is going to be her day-to-day life, the 167 hours in the week, not the one hour in someone's office. Both are important, a combination of the two will be the best thing for her.'

Booth released a long breath, trying to release some of the tension. 'Yeah. That sounds good.' It was at least good to know he was headed in the right direction. It occurred to him just how difficult it was going to be to both hunt Broadsky and his associates, and take care of Bones as well. Both tasks, if he were to do them well, demanded his full attention. Broadsky needed to be taken down, and Booth was the best one to do it. But he couldn't stand the thought of leaving Bones alone in a hospital or being babysat by someone else. She was staying with _him_.

Broadsky didn't kill her, Booth realised, because if she was gone Booth would expend all his energy on revenge. But by returning her to him broken, he would expend all his energy on taking care of her.

Collings seemed to read his thoughts. 'Broadsky couldn't have come up with a better way to put you off his trail if he tried,' he said.


	30. Chapter 30

Booth spent most of the next week working from home on the Broadsky case. He'd asked for a reduced case load so he could better focus on Bones.

She remained much the same, still sleeping a lot, eating a little and staying close to Booth when she was awake. Angela had come round to see Brennan, leaving Michael at home with Hodgins, and though Brennan had hardly spoken she clearly knew who Angela was and was happy to see her. Angela found it hard to see her so changed and there were a few sad looks exchanged with Booth literally over Brennan's head.

Booth's frustration had quickly impacted Brennan. She was extra-sensitive to Booth's mood and when he wasn't coping, neither did she. When he realised this Booth started going to the gym every morning, taking Brennan with him, and pelted all his anger at Broadsky and frustration at the case into the punching bags. Brennan watched him curled up on the seats, noticing everything and nothing at once, and calmly waited until Booth returned from the showers, once again able to focus on her and just be loving and gentle.

When Sunday morning rolled around, Booth decided to take some time out to go to church. He hadn't been for so long and he felt so drained after everything, and it would feel good to be there, doing something cleansing and familiar and refreshing.

He pulled on some clothes, then sat next to Brennan on the bed and rubbed her arm and shoulder until she squirmed and blinked her eyes open.

'Hey, Bones. I'm gonna go to church thismorning and you're coming with me.'

Brennan crinkled her forehead and looked at him curiously. 'I know you don't believe in God or religious stuff but I do, and if I'm going I'm not going to leave you behind.'

Brennan nodded sleepily and Booth squeezed her hand before getting her out some clothes.

He was getting strangely used to seeing her wake up every morning. In his bed. _Don't think about that,_ he told himself. _You're going to church. Don't give yourself more reasons to sit in confessional_.

He got himself some cereal and Brennan some toast, which was her preferred breakfast food at the moment because it didn't require cutlery and was easier to get in her mouth. Her shaking was much the same, but Dr Collings had assured him it was just a withdrawal effect of one of the drugs in her system and would ease off eventually.

Booth had picked out for her a long flowing blue top and jeans. She came out of the bathroom, her hair brushed, no makeup of course and wearing flats. Booth started to say she looked pretty but suddenly stopped himself. It was so… domestic, having her here. But they weren't together. He had to keep reminding himself of that. Right now Bones needed him as her friend. It wasn't even an option right now- she wasn't thinking clearly enough to go making huge changes in her relationships.

Brennan quietly ate her toast, staring off into space and drinking the juice Booth put down beside her. He knew she didn't remember what happened to her, but watching her sit there so quiet and spaced out, he just ached for her to find the missing pieces.

He sat thinking about this strange new normal—she didn't talk, and yet they communicated very well in their own way. He hated that her mind was so slowed down that she couldn't focus on anything. And maybe it was selfish, but he also liked seeing this unguarded side of her, where she was so easy to read. He'd spent so long waiting while she slowly opened up to him. He was just relieved that she hadn't reverted back to shutting everyone out. He didn't know what he would do if she had. It meant her love for him was stronger than her fear. She probably hadn't even realised.

When she was finished, Booth put her plate in the sink then took her hand and went down to the SUV. Brennan stuck close to him but seemed quite happy to be getting some sunshine and fresh air.

Once they were in the car Brennan started fidgeting nervously. Booth looked across at her as they waited at some lights. 'Hey. Bones, what's up?'

Brennan shook her head a little and frowned. 'I don't… I don't know.'

Booth changed the gear into drive and gave Brennan his hand to hold onto for a few minutes. She held it and nursed it in her lap.

'You're going to be okay, you know that?'

'No,' Brennan said, almost at a whisper.

'You'll get your life back, Bones. It's just gonna take some time.'

She looked over at him, wanting to believe that. She held his gaze for a moment, then he had to look away at the road. But he squeezed her hand. 'You've come a long way already. And you've got that incredible learning curve, remember.'

This made Brennan almost laugh. 'Yeah,' she said, suddenly sniffling as well.

'You're allowed to not be yourself straight away, Bones. You were gone for seven weeks, that's a long time. It's only been what, two and a half weeks since I got you back. It isn't going to happen instantly, but it's going to happen. I'm gonna be right here.'

'Everything happens eventually,' Bones whispered.

Booth smiled. 'Yeah. It does.'

He smiled at her and she gave a little smile back and a nod. 'Okay,' she said.

Booth took his hand back from her lap to park the SUV, then got out and started walking around to her door. She was already opening it and getting out, and looked like she wanted to do this herself so Booth gave her some space. She got down fine without her muscles letting her down and smiled proudly. Booth grinned back, looped an arm around her waist and walked them in.

It was a beautiful building. Stained glass windows, a high arched ceiling and wooden floors and walls. Booth chose a seat at the back in case being here made Bones too uncomfortable, so he could easily slip out with her. She sat next to him and put a hand on his leg, not very conscious of what she was doing but just to hold onto him. Booth chuckled at her and then had to try quite hard to think pious thoughts. Luckily for him, distraction appeared in the form of two little old ladies who sat down in front of them.

'Bertha was showing me her newspaper clippings, you know how she likes to cut out the interesting stories,' one of them was saying. 'I was telling her about my granddaughter working in a coffee shop, the one where there was that dreadful poisoning— and she got out the article about that exact event—do you remember? The poisoning at the coffee shop? And the senior member at the FBI who drank the poison?'

'Oh, yes!' said the other little old lady conspiratorially. 'We were talking about it just this week at Book Club—I heard it was arsenic! Planted by terrorists!'

'To think that my dear little Jessica was right there in the middle of it!'

'Oh! How dreadful!' said the second lady in delight.

'Well, listen to this—' said the first lady. She leaned in and spoke a little lower, though Brennan and Booth could hear her quite clearly. 'When I first heard about it on the news, I was so worried—I had to see that they were getting to the bottom of it! So do you know what I did? I went straight up to the FBI and asked to speak to someone about the poisonings!'

'You didn't!'

'Oh I did!'

'What happened?'

'I was taken into the office of a lovely young girl named Agent Shaw, and I told her all about my granddaughter and how _dangerous_ it was to be working where there had been poison, I needed to find out if she would be safe—'

'You spoke to an Agent! What did she say?'

'She said they were after the perpetrator, and that the coffee shop was shut down and being searched by forensics!'

'Did they find out who did it? Ethel was most convinced it was environmental activists!'

'She couldn't tell me who the suspects were, which was unfortunate, but she was most kind, telling us that coffee was bad for our health anyway, she was a sweet young lass.'

'Oh we definitely have to tell the Book Club about this! Maureen will _faint_ with jealousy.'

'Well personally I am _convinced_ that arsenic was the poison they used. You know it was just like in that Agatha Christie novel I was reading the other day.'

'It's a good thing the hospital's nearby or things could have been serious! What a story your young Jessica must have to tell, we should bring her along. It's quite extravagant, don't you think, to be poisoned by a secretive criminal, getting caught up in some mystery, maybe I could pretend it happened to me…'

'Oh Ethel would just die, she'd think it was terribly romantic…'

'I've always thought arsenic was the most _poetic_ way to go, though it would have been better if there was wine involved, rather than morning coffee, like that murder mystery party last year, remember? I wore that frightful lace shawl and the pearls, we must host one of those again…'

The organ started playing as the service was about to start. Booth chuckled at the little old ladies in front of him and Brennan finally removed her hand from his leg, as if realising where she had it, and clasped her hands together instead. Booth leaned forward to listen and Bones let her gaze wander up to the colourful glass windows.

Booth was feeling decidedly better by the time the service was over. Even Brennan seemed to be a bit calmer and happier, whether because she was responding to Booth or the service it was hard to tell.

Booth smiled as the two little old ladies went off to the tearoom, still talking together thick as thieves.

'Booth?' a man's voice called out.

He and Brennan turned around in their seats and Booth got up to shake his hand.

'Nice to see you back! It's been a while,' the older man said.

Brennan stood up and they moved out of the row of pews into the aisle. 'Uh, Bones, this is Father Mitch. This is my work partner Temperance Brennan.'

'Nice to meet you,' Mitch said affably. 'I've heard a lot about you over the years—only good things, of course.'

Brennan moved closer to Booth and smiled shyly, looping her arm through his.

'Yeah, it's been too long,' said Booth. 'It's nice to be back.'

'How's your little boy doing, Parker?' Father Mitch asked. Brennan perked up at the mention of Booth's son.

'He's good, I saw him a couple of weeks ago. They're in an FBI safehouse at the moment,' he said, more to Brennan than to Mitch.

'In a safehouse? Wow, I'm sorry to here that. I assume the perpetrator is still out there?'

'Yeah he is, it's my job to bring him in. But Parker seems to be doing pretty well in there. He and Rebecca are sharing the complex with another family, they've got a fifteen year old girl.'

Father Mitch chuckled. 'I'm guessing from your expression that Parker likes this girl.'

'I think he does,' Booth smiled.

'Is Parker really okay?' Brennan said in Booth's ear.

'Yeah Bones, he is,' Booth assured her, their foreheads nearly touching. 'When it's safe I'll take you to see him if you want.'

Brennan smiled and nodded. When Booth looked at Father Mitch he was smiling too. A little too smugly.

'What?' asked Booth defensively, still inches away from Brennan and holding her hand.

'Oh nothing. It was good to see you, Booth, Temperance,' Father Mitch said, excusing himself to go catch up with some more parishioners.


	31. Chapter 31

After a peaceful and relaxing Sunday that they'd both needed, Booth had thought of the perfect thing to do with Bones. He quietly made a phonecall to arrange things.

Brennan was finishing up eating oatmeal and fruit for breakfast. Booth had taken to choosing an outfit for her each day, not wanting her to be distressed and overwhelmed with choices.

Caring for Bones was a lot like caring for Parker, he realised. Kids are all feelings and needs, but they lack those protective, rational, perspective-driven parts, that act like a prism refracting white light, breaking problems down into manageable steps. The part that allows us to delay gratification, plan ahead and keep a level head.

Bones' barriers and coping mechanisms and defences had been torn away from her, leaving her unprotected and short-circuiting in a hostile world. He couldn't help think that beneath that outer shell of protection that is adulthood, everyone would be just like this. It would take a lot of strength for Brennan to repair the damage.

She came out into the living room, wearing grey tights, a coral shirt and a black skirt. Booth smiled and told her his surprise.

'Now that you're all dressed… how would you like to go see Angela and the new baby?'

Brennan smiled brightly. _Yeah, she'd like that_, thought Booth.

.

The SUV pulled up to Hodgins and Angela's apartment complex. It was a really nice place- modern architecture, good security system, and a wide area surrounding the block which was landscaped.

Brennan had only been here once or twice since they'd moved in. She and Angela could catch up at work every day so it wasn't all that often they visited each other's homes. Booth turned into the carpark, let the guard know which apartment he was here for over the speakerphone and drove in when they opened the gate.

'Okay— do you remember where to go?' Booth asked as they got out. Brennan didn't answer but she looked a little unsettled and trailed behind him to the elevator, as if she thought someone might jump out at them from behind the cars. Booth pressed the intercom and got the guard to open the doors since they didn't have a key card, and punched in their floor. He suddenly grinned and leaned conspiratorially towards Brennan. 'Do you want to push all the buttons just before we get out?'

She looked at him blankly. 'You know, how when you're in a lift and there's some annoying kid who goes and presses _all_ the buttons so you have to stop at every single floor and it takes forever?' Brennan seemed to consider this but just looked at him confused.

'Parker used to do it all the time. Like when he came to the Hoover one time? We were leaving and he was so excited to go get pizza that he pressed all the buttons. Which was kinda dumb because it took even longer to get to the pizza. All the staff were sort of glaring at me but Parker was putting on the charm big time and they just thought it was cute. People got in at each floor and he told every one of them about how he was going to get pizza with his dad.'

Brennan looked at him with such a mixture of sadness and love that he was sure she'd taken in the story. The elevator dinged at their floor and Booth grabbed Brennan's hand and ran it over all the buttons before they jumped out. 'Haha! We did it!' he yelled.

Brennan laughed, a sound he hadn't heard from her in a long time. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and went and knocked on Hodgins and Angela's door.

After a few moments Angela opened it. 'Sweetie!' she exclaimed, grabbing Brennan in a hug. Brennan smiled to see her and hugged her back, which delighted Booth. It always cheered him up when she recognised someone or remembered something from before she was kidnapped. The idea that she might not, was what had scared him most when he first found her. Maybe there were some things she couldn't remember, but there was a lot that she could.

'Okay, you guys have got to come see Michael. We were just giving him a bath- he can fit in the kitchen sink, it's so cute, I've taken about a hundred photos.' Angela led them through the living room, painted pale grey and blue with high ceilings and a beaded chandelier that Angela had made herself.

The kitchen was on their right, overlooking a park, and Hodgins was cooing at baby Michael in the sink.

'Hey, guys!' he said, obviously in a wonderful mood and happy to show off his baby. Michael's little eyes were open and at fifteen days old, he still looked like a newborn.

Brennan was enraptured and went over to watch him. He was so tiny and yet so big, his little blonde eyebrows and cute little nose, his tiny fingers, his feet…everything about him was perfect. Brennan didn't say anything but did smile happily and look Angela right in the eyes.

'I've had like, no sleep,' Angela said, 'but now that he's here I can drink a _little_ bit of coffee.'

'I keep telling her that it's fine but it's the one thing she's big on,' Hodgins grinned.

'Honey, you have that rule about 'no sugar til he's in school' and I have the thing about caffeine. We each get to have one crazy thing.'

Booth chuckled. 'I'd never have pictured you guys as the food police.'

'Well, I'm going to be totally lenient about face paints, so it sort of evens out,' Angela grinned.

Brennan wandered back over to the sink and put her fingers in the water, splashing a tiny bit of water on his tummy. He sort of wriggled and squirmed.

'I'm pretty sure he's got no idea why he's in this wet stuff,' said Hodgins, splashing some water on the baby too. 'It's weird, isn't it Michael?' he cooed at his son. 'What are these strange big people doing putting you in the sink?'

'I think he likes having baths,' Angela said. 'So the first night at home I could not. Get. Him to sleep. Like, seriously it was three am, he just kept crying. So Jack filled up the sink with warm water and we put him in, and he fell asleep on us right there in the tub.'

'_I_ nearly fell asleep on us right there,' said Hodgins.

'But my dad's coming over to mind him tomorrow,' Angela said. Hodgins groaned. 'I don't think there's any part of me left to tattoo.'

'He might _not_ tattoo you, it could happen. I'll talk to him. I'll say something like how I don't need to see my own face all the time when we're—'

'I don't think that's gonna cut it. And plus, you just know he's going to stir Michael up. I just want to get some _sleep_.'

Brennan gently stroked one finger along the baby's cheek, feeling how velvety soft his skin was. Hewas beautiful. It was amazing that this little guy had just come into the world one day, just… been _born_, and was here. In terms of statistics it was insignificant, but, she thought, looking at Booth, it was also a miracle.

She suddenly felt sad and had no idea why. She looked at the perfect little baby, and Angela who looked so happy, and at Booth. She caught his eye for just an instant— then turned abruptly away as if burned.

Brennan had no idea why she was now feeling sad. She suddenly didn't want to be here anymore. She wanted to be home, wherever that was, under a sheet or in a corner, hidden and invisible and safe.

She didn't understand why she was sad. _I don't know why, don't know why, don't know __why_—the thought went round and round. There was no _reason_ to be sad. It was all just so confusing.

Angela came and took Michael out of the sink, letting most of the water drip off him, and placed him down on a cute little baby-sized towel embroidered with a hippo and giraffe. Brennan moved out of the way. She tried to focus on watching Angela's movements, her smile and animated baby-talk as she tried to get Michael to smile back.

Brennan backed up against the counter so Hodgins and Angela could move around freely. She sensed that Booth was looking at her but she didn't turn to meet his gaze. He would ask her if she was alright. But she felt looking at him would make it worse. She felt it would be painful.

Brennan hurried off to the bathroom, just for somewhere to hide for a little while. Individually she trusted all three of her friends, enough to let a few tears slip and not worry they would think any less of her. But something about being on the edge of a breakdown, in the middle of a group made it… unmanageable. It was just too much.

She stood in front of the tap, and turned the water on, and just stared at it. The noise it made was… not really nice, not like a waterfall or a tide. The sound was frenzied and she felt guilty for wasting water. But she just needed something to distract her, something to think about, as much as she _could_ think. At some point she would have to go back outside. She wanted to put that off.

.

Booth decided to give Brennan some space. He had noticed her change in mood. He thought he could guess pretty easily what it was about, but she seemed to be shutting down about it. That was understandable too. She had wanted a baby not so long ago, and here with Hodgins and Angela, the absence of those things in her life was stark and obvious. He thought that Angela had probably figured out the same thing.

'I'm gonna go find Brennan,' she said, giving Michael a quick kiss.

Brennan heard someone knock on the door. She wanted to call 'go away' but her voice didn't seem to work. But when the person called out to her, she was relieved it was Angela and not Booth.

'Sweetie, can you open up for a second? I've got a surprise for you upstairs.'

Brennan found herself mechanically getting up to open the door. If she didn't do it now, Hodgins and Booth would get involved. This was… less bad.

She swung the door open to find Ange standing right there. 'I think you're going to like this. I was meaning to bring the stuff over when I came to see you last week,' she said, leading Brennan up to her and Hodgins' room.

She barrelled past the big window and the elegant bedroom suite, into the bathroom. She held up a big pair of scissors, and a basket full of beauty products. Brennan didn't really respond.

'A friend of mine caught up with me a couple of weeks ago, while I was on maternity leave and she was teaching me hairdressing,' Ange grinned. 'It's sort of about precision and artistry, so I was pretty good at it.' She showed Brennan the basket. 'This stuff someone gave me, as like a pregnancy-pampering thing. I didn't have time to use it, but I'd much prefer using it on you.' She emptied it out on the bench—there was a loofah, some pedicure and manicure stuff, body lotion, perfume, wax strips, bath bombs, massage oil, a face mask… Angela looked pretty excited.

Brennan smiled and sat down in front of the mirror. Ange happily sprayed her hair wet and combed it til it fell straight. 'I'm just going to cut the split ends, because no one should make big life decisions like changing your hair when you're tired or stressed.' She tried to get a smile out of Brennan with that but she was too busy watching Angela working away in the mirror. 'Now I'm going to trim your fringe, just a _little_ so it sits a bit better… there.'

Brennan liked it. It was still a little longer than she was used to, but the ends curled into soft waves and loose ringlets and her fringe swept across to one side, falling to just below her eyebrows.

'I think that looks pretty good,' Angela said smugly. 'Okay, next—you really need to wax your legs, Sweetie, especially with that gorgeous man around.'

Brennan felt slightly panicked by that statement. For some reason. She just felt like a flight risk today.

Ange propped her feet on the side of the bathtub and started putting on the strips. 'Wow, these abrasions still look pretty bad. You'll have to use wax instead of shaving for a few more weeks. Are you putting some of that oil stuff on them?'

She hadn't really. Booth had been doing her arms and the scrape on her forehead since she was in hospital. She didn't reply though and Ange ripped off the first strip without warning.

Brennan said 'Uh!' at the ripping sensation and Ange shrugged apologetically. 'Sorry. But it's better if you don't know when it's coming, gives you less time to think about it.'

She finished Brennan's legs, covered them in lotion and moved on to nails. Brennan liked nailpolish on occasion, but since she probably wouldn't maintain them Angela just went for French-tips. She sprayed one squirt of perfume, Brennan liked the smell of it, and gave her the other stuff in the bag to take home.

'I bet Cam didn't go through your drawers and cabinets like I would have,' she grinned mischievously. Brennan smiled. 'I probably would have packed all the fun stuff, knowing you'd be staying at Booth's.'

Brennan clearly didn't get Angela's implication, so Angela sighed and started putting on the face mask. 'You can't scrunch up your face, Bren, it's not _that_ bad,' Angela said. It did smell pretty nice, like frangipanis and coconut. Angela grabbed a curling iron and started setting her trimmed hair into loose curls while she waited for it to dry. 'Booth told me your hands are still shaking,' she said quietly. 'Are you still feeling sick?'

Angela had a way of asking questions like this without it seeming intrusive. Probably if anyone else had asked, Brennan would have bristled. But it felt good to be able to share things with Ange— someone who was like a sister who would see the good and the ugly, and still be on her side.

Brennan nodded a little. She _was_ still feeling sick. Not as bad as she had felt at one point, while she was still back there, with those men… she couldn't remember much except that she had felt sick enough to just vomit up her internal organs. But then she had been at the hospital, and she was sleeping, and since then she felt a lot better. Things hurt less. She still had to sleep a lot, and her muscles wouldn't obey her brain, and she still felt sick. But she could cope with it.

Angela soaked a cotton washcloth and carefully removed the face mask. 'There you go. Your skin looks tons better, how does it feel?'

Brennan touched her cheek. It felt smooth and cool. She smiled at Angela.

'Great. Hm, we should probably get downstairs to the guys. They're probably teaching Michael how to shoot a gun or play poker or something…'

Brennan got up, carrying her basket of beauty supplies and followed Angela downstairs. Hodgins and Booth were in the lounge room playing with Michael, who was on his back on the carpet with a big arch of dangling toys above him. He was sort of moving his arms and legs but still hadn't really got the hang of how that worked.

'He's starting to look grumpy, Ange,' Hodgins said as they came in.

'Aw, poor little guy,' Ange said, kneeling down beside the baby. 'I bet you're hungry. It's been like an hour since I fed you…'

'It's been like, four,' Hodgins said.

'Trust me, it feels like one,' Angela said. 'It's a good thing I'm not at work right now because I wouldn't get _anything_ done, would I Mikey.' She picked up the baby and went into the nursery to sit on the rocking chair and feed him.

Brennan didn't know where to go, to follow Angela or sit next to Booth. Suddenly her brain just felt…. like it was short-circuiting. Why couldn't she make a simple decision? She took a few steps after Angela, around the corner from the loungeroom, then stopped with a jerk, and looked back the other way. She wanted Angela. But she also wanted Booth. Or maybe, she didn't want anybody, and just wanted to be by herself. She wanted all three at once. She didn't want to be with Booth and Hodgins because there were two of them. She took a few more steps after Angela.

But _Booth_. She wanted him more. She wanted to see the baby again. But seeing him also hurt, for some reason, and she didn't know why. She didn't know what she wanted. And it seemed important, that she know. But she didn't. She was just stuck, by herself, in limbo…

'_Uh_.' Brennan backed against the wall and hit it with her fist. Not hard enough to break the plaster. Probably not hard enough for anyone to hear.

She thought she heard someone in the lounge room stand up. Booth had heard. He was coming after her. She didn't want him to see her like this, lost and not able to make up her mind. She ran into the nursery.

'Hey, Sweetie,' Angela said, noticing the distressed look on her friend's face. You okay?'

'Yeah,' Brennan said breathlessly.

Angela could see she was sort of lying there, but she let it slide. 'You wanna hold him after I've finished feeding him?'

Brennan looked down at the little bundle, she could see part of his face peeking out from below Angela's top. 'I uh….' Brennan wanted to but she also didn't want to. And her hands… her hands were shaky. She couldn't hold the baby. She might drop him. It could be dangerous. _She_ might be dangerous.

Brennan shook her head and backed out of the room again. 'Bren, Sweetie?' Angela called after her.

'_Uhh_.' She walked straight into Booth. He caught her upper arms to stop her falling over, she was looking really unsteady on her feet.

'Bones?'

Brennan refused to look at him.

'You okay?'

She nodded defiantly.

Booth frowned and put his hand on the small of her back, leading her back out to the loungeroom. _At least she's acting like the Bones I know_, he thought. _I hope this is a good thing_.

Hodgins made everyone coffee (decaf for Angela and Brennan) and told his guests an entertaining story about an amazing collection of preserved butterflies, arthropods and arachnids he'd found last year in Paris. Brennan enjoyed the story a lot—for some reason she found it easy to follow Hodgins' scientific organism names and technical explanations.

After about 20 minutes Angela came out, Michael having fallen asleep after being fed. Booth could sense Brennan tense up when Angela entered the room, just like she'd done when he ran into her in the hallway. It might be time to take her home.

'Hey we might head off,' Booth said, catching Angela's eye and seeing her nod in agreement. This was too much for Brennan right now.

'Sure, thanks for dropping round,' said Hodgins. 'We'll have to come visit you guys sometime.'

'Sounds good,' Booth said. Hodgins and Ange walked them to the front door, Angela pulling Brennan in for a tight hug before they left. 'If you want to hang out, just give me a call, okay?' she told her best friend. Brennan nodded as Booth took her hand and led them out into the corridor. Hodgins said 'See ya' before he closed the door, and Booth went over to the elevator and used the intercom again to go down to the parking garage.

The door slid open and they piled inside. Brennan felt exhausted—not so much physically, but emotionally. She didn't know why and she hated it.

She felt conflicted about Booth. She wanted to cuddle up to him so she could feel safe and protected, but she also wanted to get far away from him. The confusion was enough to make her cry with frustration.

Booth watched the emotions play out on her face. She was leaning against him one moment, and the next was facing away from him in the corner of the lift.

'Do you wanna tell me about it, Bones?'

She shook her head. 'No,' she mumbled.

The lift reached the ground floor and they got out, Booth noticing how she kept a few steps behind him rather than holding onto him. He let her open her own door since she seemed to want some space.

Brennan didn't know why he did that, and it stung. Not that she liked it anyway. She could open a damn door. But he had changed his behaviour, something predictable had become unpredictable, and she felt her eyes burn with tears. She climbed in and dug out her sunglasses to hide it. Booth saw, of course, but he didn't know what to say.

Of course she'd been upset meeting Michael. He hadn't really thought of that possibility, he assumed it would make her happy. But he'd effectively shown her, probably the life she secretly wanted, but thought she couldn't have.

'You know, it's okay to feel happy and sad at the same time,' he said after a few minutes. Bones didn't respond. 'It's confusing, and it doesn't make sense, but that's just how it is sometimes.'

Nothing. He could tell she was trying to keep herself together. Right now she needed to fall apart, and somewhere safe to do it, so he took her straight back to his place instead of going to get lunch like he'd planned.

This time when he stopped the car, he opened her door for her, and she grabbed his shirt again. As much as he wanted his old Bones back, feisty and confident, he was relieved she had decided to like him again. He didn't think he could handle it if she froze up or pulled away.

They took the elevator rather than the stairs, cos he wanted to get her inside quickly. When he unlocked the front door, she ran inside and locked herself in the bathroom.

Booth sat down and leaned forward with his face in his hands, massaging his temples, trying to decide what to do. Women had crazy mood changes sometimes, Bones included, but this wasn't so simple. She had obviously been hit with a lot of old memories—emotional memories. And some of them involved him.

He went into the kitchen and heated up some soup from the fridge. He could faintly hear the shower running. He chopped up some fruit and grabbed some juice and soda, and put the food on the table.

He wandered back into the bedroom after about twenty minutes. The shower was off but he could hear her sobbing in the bathroom. She probably genuinely had needed to cry to get it out of her system. He leaned against the door and sighed. She wanted space, but at the same time she probably wanted _him_. She didn't _know_ what she wanted.

'Bones,' he said to the closed door. 'I've got some lunch out. '

No reply, though the crying stopped, as if she was trying not to let him hear. Booth tried to think of how to handle this. 'I'm gonna give you ten more minutes, then I'm coming in to get you, you're gonna make yourself feel sick if you keep crying.'

The noise had all but stopped, which he figured was a good sign. He went back into the living room and put on the whale dvd again. He was going to pull out anything that would keep her in a good mood.

Right as he was about to go in and get her, Bones came into the living room. Her eyes were a little red but she'd splashed cold water on her face. She had her arms around herself defensively and avoided Booth's eyes.

'Just sit on the couch, Bones. I'll bring the food over.'

She sat down on the far end of the couch and watched the whales swam around on the screen. Booth handed her a bowl of fruit and a fork, and put the soup and some bread on the coffee table. He sat down beside her, probably a little closer than she wanted, but he was determined not to let her shut him out. He didn't know how he could help her if she did that. And giving her to someone else was _not_ an option.

'I like what Angela did with your hair,' he said lightly. Brennan brought a shaking hand up to twirl the end of one of the curls. Her hands seemed to get shakier when she was trying to use them.

And now that she was thinking about the shaking, it just got worse. She tried to pick up her fork again and dropped it. She felt her whole body start to shake and closed her eyes against the tears. Then Booth was taking the plate and fork away and pulling her onto his lap.

'It's okay, Bones,' he soothed. She found herself start to sob again, and didn't know if she wanted Booth to see or not. She tried to hold the tears back but she couldn't, so she just gave in and buried her head in his shirt.

'Bones.' He just said her name and leaned back with her, holding her tight and close. Booth could only think of how unfair this was—what had been done to Brennan. Whatever _had_ happened, since neither of them really knew.

'You were sad when you saw Angela's baby.' Brennan sniffed but didn't say anything. 'You're allowed to want to have that, Bones,' he said, rubbing her back. 'It's a good thing to want. It can be hard to see someone else have that.'

Brennan responded by softening and hugging him back.

'How….. how did you…..'

'I know you, Bones,' he smiled. She suddenly felt very glad that he was holding her like this. She wanted to stay right here and not move.

'Why were you upset with me?' he asked after a minute. Now that she was warming up to him, she might actually answer that.

'I… Booth… I don't…..' She sighed in frustration. 'I don't… you were…..'

He stayed quiet, seeing if she'd be able to get it out. All she managed to do was whimper '_Booth_...' which he took to mean she didn't know herself.

'That's okay, it's okay,' he assured her. She snuggled into his chest a bit more and he just held her, as they listened to the sounds of the whales singing.

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**A/N **

**Hope you enjoyed this, I think it's the longest chapter so far! There's some good stuff in the next couples of chapters including a visit to a crime scene, and Gordon Gordon. Also, I'm up to page 187 in the word document I'm writing this in. Just felt the need to say that :o)**

**If you haven't reviewed yet let me know if you like it! **


	32. Chapter 32

**A/N**

**Hey guys, back with another chapter! Yay! Enjoy!**

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With everything she had been through Brennan hadn't really thought about the finer points of grooming. She hadn't actually been thinking very much about anything, and had preferred to just wear long pants and curl up rather than go to the significant effort of somehow shaving her legs around all the wounds and scars. With shaking hands. But now that Angela had given her some beauty treatments she decided she should make more of an effort with the vitamin E oil on her scars. So she sat on the sofa the next morning in shorts, rubbing the oil into the cuts and scrapes on her lower legs, knees, ankles, feet and a few on the side of her thighs.

Booth had decided for his own sanity to leave Brennan's legs to her, though he still made a point every day of doing her arms and wrists. Both of them knew she could do her arms herself, but they both secretly, or not so secretly liked the excuse for contact, so neither suggested stopping.

'I think they look a bit better this week, you know,' Booth said lightly, dabbing oil around her wrist. Brennan had her feet resting on the coffee table while the oil soaked in, trying not to smear it by touching anything. 'You still don't remember how you got any of these?'

Brennan sighed and shook her head, inclining her body a little more towards Booth. She didn't seem distressed by the question. Booth thought that if she never remembered, it might not be such a bad thing. Despite the more obvious symptoms of difficulty talking, muscle shaking and her slowed-down mind, she seemed to be coping with things better than Booth would have expected. She seemed happy to trust him to take care of her. She had a couple of nightmares, but she could never remember what they were about.

Booth got up and sat down on her other side, taking her arm in his hands. Her head lolled contentedly on the head rest just watching him work. It felt somuch better for Booth to do it than rubbing it in herself.

Just as he was applying oil to the last cuts on her hand, Booth's phone rang. 'Argh,' Booth said, grabbing a towel to wipe the oil off himself. 'I got it...' He jumped up and grabbed it on the 6th ring. 'Booth.'

'Agent Booth, hi, this is Genevieve Shaw.'

'Hi, what's up?'

'Um, Agent Johnson couldn't come in, he fell off his motorbike and had to get a cast…'

'Huh, well at least you can check up on an excuse like that. What do you need me for?'

'Well Johnson is your stand-in for cases with the Jeffersonian…he's been working with Dr Brennan's interns… and there's a body. No one else has experience with uh, the squints. I know it's late notice but…'

'Yeah, that's fine,' Booth assured her, glancing at the time. Ten-thirty. 'Where's the body?'

'It's in a storm-water drain on Haywood St, there's a park with a playground. Some kids found it and called it in.'

'Lucky kids,' said Booth drily.

'They're about fifteen, they sounded fine… Anyway, I've called Dr Hodgins and Wendell Bray, they should be there in twenty minutes.'

'Okay. Thanks Shaw.' Booth hung up and walked over to Bones who was sleepily watching him. She shifted as he sat down beside her, then he caught her eyes with his. 'How do you feel about a field trip?' he asked. 'Dead body, you, me, Hodgins and Wendell.' He chuckled. 'You can stare at Wendell while he inspects the remains, look disapproving, freak him out…'

Brennan blinked and rubbed one eye but didn't say anything. Some days she wasn't as responsive as others, and this was one of those days. If anyone could pick up signals from her, it was Booth, but he was never entirely sure if she heard and understood what he was saying. Sometimes she'd respond physically, like looking at the object he was talking about or walking into the bathroom when he suggested taking a shower. And occasionally she'd respond verbally. When she didn't do either, it was tricky.

'Okay,' Booth said, slapping his legs in a 'let's go' gesture. 'You okay to wear that or do you wanna change?'

Brennan glanced down at her shorts and shiny scarred legs, the oil still glistening. She seemed not to really care so Booth grabbed a coat and shoes for her and got out his badge, gun, holster and a jacket. He figured since it was so last-minute, he could rock up in jeans instead of a suit.

'You right? C'mon let's go.' Booth found Brennan's hand, and by bringing it up to his lips and kissing it, managed to get a smile out of her. _Response_, he thought happily. They walked out to the stairs and down to the SUV.

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Neither of them had been back to the lab yet. He didn't know whether it would be a positive or negative experience for her, but he was likely to find out at some point today.

The traffic was pretty light, and they arrived at the crime scene twenty minutes later to find Hodgins and Wendell both dressed in Jeffersonian jumpsuits, unpacking Hodgins' sample collecting gear.

Booth pulled up next to them and climbed out of the car, going round to the other side so Bones could put a hand on his shoulder to steady herself getting out. Taking her hand again they walked over to the scene, some techs and police already marking out the area.

'Hey Booth, Dr B,' Hodgins called out as they went over. Wendell looked a bit surprised to see them, though most of the surprise was probably at Brennan. She was clutching Booth's hand, dressed in far less than he had ever seen her at work in a racer-back tank top and shorts, and had obvious markers of physical abuse all over her. She otherwise looked fairly normal- no makeup but her hair nicely cut and brushed. She looked like she was staying put right there beside Booth, though. Next to him she looked really young. Booth didn't seem to think anything was strange about it. He whispered into her ear a few times, though without much response.

'Okay Wendell you're up! What've we got?' said Hodgins. Wendell leaned over and examined the body.

'Okay… from the mastoid process, this looks like a male, who based on the humerus was approximately….. 180cm in height. Age would be between 18 and 23…'

'Incomplete fracture on the parietal bone,' Brennan announced. Everyone stopped and looked at her.

'Really?' asked Hodgins, turning to Wendall.

The intern checked the skull. '…yeah,' he said. 'But there's no way- how did she see that so fast? She wasn't even kneeling down.'

Booth was staring at Brennan, in mild shock. 'The… the parietal bone,' Brennan said again quietly and self-consciously, so only Booth could hear.

'Okay, show me, Bones,' Booth said, glad he'd thought to give her lace-up shoes instead of slip-ons. He wrapped one arm around her waist and took them a few steps so they were next to Wendell. She looked down, then up at Booth and pointed at the fracture. She didn't say anything else.

'Wow,' said Hodgins.

'Oh yeah, I see it,' Booth said. 'Little black line on the skull. I would _never_ have picked that up.'

'Well, Dr Brennan is brilliant,' Wendell said.

'Sucking up?' grinned Hodgins.

'No! just—she always sees things we miss, you know, when we want to give up she comes and finds something. It's why she's the best.'

'Yeah, she is,' Booth said quietly, tightening his grip in their side-on hug. _I cannot believe she just said that_. _Something squinty. I should have known_.

'Well…' Hodgins was still sort of gaping at Brennan. 'I guess we're shipping this lot back to the lab. I'm uh, I'm just gonna get some soil samples.'

Wendell sort of hung around, looking lost for what to do next. 'You're supposed to go annoy the techs now,' Booth told him. 'Make sure they're not compromising evidence. That's what Bones always does. Tell them you're carrying on the tradition.'

Wendell gave a quick polite smile and moved off to find the techs. Booth gave Brennan a little longer gazing at the body to see if she would say anything else. But she just laid her head on his shoulder and slumped against him slightly. 'Okay, sleepy-Bones. Let's get going to the lab.' Booth steered them around and back to the SUV, still processing her unusual outburst. _She noticed that fracture. She saw it when Wendell didn't. She's still in there, somewhere._ He decided to ask Sweets about it when he had the chance.

He opened Bones' door and helped her in, her legs shaking slightly as she climbed up, then jumped in the driver's seat and headed off.

Bones looked the same as she had that morning, seeming not to have noticed anything strange about what happened at the crime scene. Booth stole glances at her, but found himself thinking how pretty she looked. He wasn't sure this was a good idea. Her skin, apart from her injuries looked as pale and rosy as ever, and he could see Angela had done something with her hair. He still found it hard to look at the angry scars and rashes all over her limbs, but as he kept saying to her every day as he rubbed in the oil, they were going to fade and one day you would never know they'd been there.

He actually hadn't seen her in so little clothing since the night he'd carried her up from the cliff. Attraction hadn't even crossed his mind that night, but now he found himself really glad that her tank top wasn't revealing any cleavage. _Thank you Cam,_ he thought.

Brennan was of course oblivious to these thoughts, inspecting her fingernails and wrists, or looking out the window as they approached the Jeffersonian. The way they were driving took them past the rose gardens, and both of them thought of several times they had walked through there together, bounding off to a crime scene or debriefing after a case. Not that either one was thinking of any old cases. More along the lines of a pair of blue, or a pair of deep brown eyes. They spent the last few minutes of the drive being careful to look straight ahead.

Booth turned the ignition off and they both climbed out, Brennan this time waiving off his help, wanting to have a go at it herself. She smiled brightly when she accomplished the task, and suddenly, they were both very aware of how they were standing—Brennan backed up against the car, with Booth right in front of her.

For a long moment they just stared at each other, breathing a little heavier, and neither of them moved. This thing between them- It wasn't as if the idea of them getting together had never occurred, far from it, but it had always been measured and controlled and recently, shoved well and truly out of sight. To find it rearing its head now was almost a shock. Brennan looked hypnotised and Booth thought he probably did too. Finally, as if coming to his senses Booth stepped back and swung the door shut. Without touching her in any way, he walked her to the elevator up to the lab.

_Where the hell did that come from?_ he thought. _Because that was_ not _just me. That was mutual._

Brennan kept her eyes trained on the wall or the floor and Booth clasped his hands together to keep from reaching out and touching her. It felt strange. He wasn't sure he _liked_ this shift. It was too soon. She wasn't ready. Not with everything that had happened, not with Broadsky still out there— it was complicated enough right now. For all he knew, she _could_ have been raped while she was held captive. She didn't remember right now, but one day she might. He didn't want to go there with her now, inadvertently flick a switch in her brain and have her flooded with horrific memories. She'd already shown that she could react to him with great fear. Going slow wasn't optional. He wouldn't let anything rob them of this.

The lift dinged at the lab and they walked out and through the big glass sliding doors.

Angela spotted them almost at once. 'Bren! Hey, welcome back,' she beamed, wrapping Brennan in a hug. Booth smiled at them. He was glad she was getting a hug from someone right now. Even though he wanted it to be him.

Brennan's face lit up as Angela steered her toward her office, talking animatedly about the new FBI guy and how he'd broken one of Hodgins' glass insect habitats. Booth trailed behind, noticing that there were almost as many scars and abrasions on the back of Bones' legs as the front. He'd never really seen that part of her until she put on shorts today. _What the hell does that mean?_ he thought, then tried to just put it out of his mind. He was going to go crazy, wondering. He'd deal with things as they happened. With the facts.

'Booth!' Cam called. Torn about following Bones or talking to Cam, he watched Angela lead Bones into her artsy office and went over to Cam.

'Hey Camille, what's up?' he asked, seamlessly switching mode.

'Not much, Seeley. Well, that's a lie, there's a lot up. The FBI's been hassling us to work more cases, as you might have guessed.'

'Yeah, how's that going?'

'Well they seem to think they own us, and keep trying to send out the interns with other agents.'

'But that's good experience for them, right? I mean otherwise they'd just be lab rats.'

'I don't mind sending out the interns so much, but really Hodgins, Angela and I are looking for more leads on the Broadsky case.'

'The Broadsky, Kraus and McCullough case, you mean.'

Cam raised an eyebrow. 'You've found a lead?'

'Technically, I didn't find them. I'll email you the files. To be honest I'm just torn right now between being there for Bones, and hunting these guys down… I mean Bones, she just, she has to come first. She can't be left alone right now.'

Cam glanced over into Angela's office, where Brennan was listening to Angela, but not saying anything in response. Thin and dressed in those simple clothes, she could have been a kid. Cam knew of Brennan's past in the foster system and wondered if there was anything familiar to her about this. She just looked fragile.

'Yeah,' Cam said shrugging. 'That's fair.' Actually she felt Booth needed to be with Brennan for _his_ own sanity almost as much as hers.

'So did you tell them you're already putting everything into the Broadsky case?'

Cam chuckled at the memory. 'Believe me, I did. Oh—and an Agent Stennings has been coming around hassling us for information on Broadsky. Sounds like his investigations aren't going very well.'

'Yeah, that would be about right,' Booth said. 'Stennings isn't the FBI's brightest.'

Hodgins and Wendell walked through the sliding doors into the lab and came up to the platform to join Booth and Cam.

'Well in all fairness, our search isn't going much better,' Cam continued. 'We've been following up on every lead you put in your reports—Sweets even convinced us to dig up that Jane Doe from the cemetery and look for clues. Everyone's been working hard but… the trail's just gone cold.'

'We'll get these guys,' Hodgins said emphatically. 'If I have to bribe the CIA, or put billboards in front of every supermarket I'll do that.'

Booth smirked genuinely at the conspiracy-nut squint. 'Thanks. I appreciate it.'

Hodgins frowned for a second. 'So, Brennan… she doing any better?'

Booth glanced towards Angela's office. The two women were still there talking. Or, one of them was talking. 'She's, you know, it's taking her a while. You can't rush it,' he said vaguely. To be honest to didn't really know. He wanted some advice, like from Sweets or…

Booth pulled out his cell phone and typed out a quick text message, then kept talking to Hodgins. 'I mean, at the crime scene thismorning? That's the first time she's done anything like that.'

'What happened at the crime scene?' asked Cam.

'She pointed out an obscure incomplete fracture from three feet away on a corpse covered in dirt,' said Wendell. 'I hadn't even seen it.'

'Wow,' Cam said, glancing over to the two best friends. 'So is she talking now?' she asked Booth.

'A couple of words, here and there. I don't know how much she's aware of what goes on around her. She's… she's different, but the same, you know?'

'She's going to be alright though,' Wendell said. 'Right?'

'Yeah.' Booth said in a flat tone, as if trying to convince himself. He didn't look at the intern, just gazed over at the office window. 'She's going to be fine.'


	33. Chapter 33

**A/N hey guys, back with a new chapter! Also, I was at the movies last night and saw a preview for a movie named after a character from Greek mythology, the exact same one that I had already written into the next chapter, 34. So gutted man, I totally thought it up before I knew there was a movie :o) Now it looks like I copied. Oh well. Also? If anyone goes to watch the hunger games make sure you don't have motion sickness cos the camera is really shaky. There's a story there but I won't bore you. On with the B&B-ness :o)**

**PS. Spoiler alert, next chapter features the inestimable Gordon Gordon so stay tuned!**

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Booth decided to leave Bones with Angela for a couple of hours to chase up the files and get them to Cam. He knew she'd be safe in the lab. He spoke to a few of the security guards, told them not to let her leave the building unless it was with him, should she decide to wander off, and to call his cell phone if anything happened to her. And also to be careful about who they allowed in. He'd mentioned this to Cam and Hodgins as well, not that he thought anything was likely to happen but just as an extra precaution.

He stuck his head into Angela's office and told them he'd be out for a little while. Brennan immediately looked disconcerted but Booth held her gaze and promised he'd be back for her soon.

Brennan didn't know what to feel. It seemed ever since she'd been back that feelings were easier to process than thoughts. They were still difficult, though—feelings weren't her strong point. But they were the main way she was communicating right now. She depended on Booth and Angela to make sense out of the chaos, and she had Angela here, but the idea of being without Booth made her stomach lurch. She nodded at Booth so he knew she understood, but kept looking after him as he crossed the lab and exited into the hallway.

'Sweetie,' Angela said for the third time. Brennan snapped out of it and looked at her. -Angela smiled sympathetically. 'Hey, let me show you some photos of Michael. I have no idea what my Dad is getting up to—he's babysitting today, so I thought I'd take the chance to have some me-time. Although somehow that turned into work.' She sat on her couch and patted the spot next to her, then brought up the slideshow on the Angelatron.

'This was the first night we brought him home,' she narrated as Brennan sat down beside her. 'My dad gave him that cute little monogrammed hat with the fake mohawk, it's so cute… This is him staring at the scientifically accurate bug mobile above his cot. Hodgins fell in love with it, he wanted to buy two.'

Brennan pasted on a smile and watched her best friend flick through several dozen photos. She was beginning to feel woozy for some reason. She was finding this upsetting, and she wasn't sure why, but Booth wasn't here.

She knew something had passed between them on the car trip. She didn't know why it happened right then, or if she wanted to act on it but either way, she just missed Booth's presence keenly. She needed him to be on an even keel. Angela was great, she really was but the fact just was that she was closer to Booth. Booth knew things Angela didn't know, just because they were always together. He knew her embarrassing story about Brainy Smurf, and that the first time she'd had sex she was 22, and that her mother and grandmother's dolphin ring her father passed on to her was possibly her most prized possession. He knew her. And she just wanted him.

Brennan stood up and pointed to show she was going to the bathroom. Angela said 'okay' and paused the slideshow for her. Brennan didn't know if she was upset by looking at photos of Michael, like she had been when she met him. She didn't know what to think. Right now she just felt sick.

She stumbled into the restroom and looked in the mirror. Her eyes darted involuntarily once, very quickly and she could feel some of her muscles shaking. She turned on the water and splashed some over her face, dabbing it dry on a paper towel. Throwing it in the bin, she locked herself in one of the cubicles.

She thought she might throw up. She tried to take long, slow deep breaths, thinking she might be able to fight the impulse. Acting completely on autopilot, she unbuttoned her shorts and slid them down. There was blood everywhere.

Brennan blinked. Did she have her period already? This hadn't happened to her since she was fourteen, she'd never let this happen usually.

Suddenly there was more blood, and it was all around her, on her arms and face and on the dirt floor…

'She knows nothing,' she heard someone say in a thick accent. 'She won't remember after today.'

'He'll be back at four, do you have the equipment?'

'Yes it will be deliv—Hey! She's awake!'

Brennan was screaming, but silently, no sound came out of her mouth—she was gagged. She tried to swallow, but she couldn't breathe then- Someone was coming closer, but her eyes were out of focus, she could just smell dirt, and the wet blood all over her, and urine somewhere, maybe everywhere… her forehead was stinging, and then it all went black.

'_Sweetie_.' No response. 'Brennan!'

Angela had managed to open the locked cubicle door and was now trying to wake her friend up. She looked like she'd fainted.

Brennan blinked her eyes open, and struggled to hold back tears as the flashback she'd just experienced sank in. She let out a silent sob, then began hyperventilating.

'Whoa, whoa just take it easy, Bren. Just relax. You're safe, everything's okay.'

Brennan squeezed shut her eyes and put a finger on her pulse, timing when she should take another breath. She sat there for a few minutes looking like she was meditating. Finally she was breathing normally again.

'I brought you a skirt and some underwear you had in your office,' Ange said gently, holding the clothes out to her. 'I noticed when you got up. You didn't have any pads in your room so I got one of mine.'

Brennan shakily accepted the items, finding her hands hard to control. Angela looked at her trembling, heartbroken. 'This is what girl-friends do,' she explained, trying to lighten things up. 'You know, go shopping, borrow shoes, spot for spots…'

Brennan didn't look like she was going to move so Angela stood up and coaxed her to her feet.

'Just go back in and get changed. There's no way Booth would have seen it so don't worry.'

_Booth_. He wasn't here. He was going to be gone for a couple of hours. She appreciated Angela, she loved her like they were sisters, but she just didn't feel as safe. She dragged the door closed, took the soiled clothes off and slipped the clean ones on. Scrunching them up in a ball, she headed to the decontamination showers. She wanted the blood gone. She didn't want the smell of it anywhere near her.

She closed the shower door, stripped everything off and turned on the water. It wasn't the best shower, the shower head only had about five holes in it and it was impossible to get the temperature right.

When steam had fogged up most of the room, she turned it off, towelled dry and got back into the clean clothes. She wandered back into Ange's office and sat back down on the couch- luckily there was no stain on it.

'Here, I'll take these home and clean them,' Angela said. 'Do you have stuff at Booth's place?'

Brennan had no idea. She shrugged helplessly. She couldn't deal with this right now, it was too much… Booth and the crime scene and the baby photos and blood and the flash-back… she just couldn't do any more right now.

Ange seemed to understand this and went off to ask Cam if she remembered what of Brennan's she'd packed.

'Cam says she thinks she did but doesn't remember,' Angela told her when she returned. 'I've got two more you can have, after that you'll have to find some at home or go to the shops. I'd offer to go out for you but just with Michael and Hodgins and my dad at the moment…'

Brennan shook her head a little to say Ange didn't have to do that, and it was fine. Ange handed her two more, which she had to hold because the skirt had no pockets, and then she opened a video of Hodgins blowing raspberries on the baby's tummy, then singing a song about all the elements in the periodic table. Ange's voice came from behind the camera laughing and suggesting some more traditional nursery rhythms.

After a while Brennan lay down on the couch. She had a bad cramp now and the painkiller Angela had given her wasn't doing much. She figured she could try to sleep and when she woke up, the pain might be gone.

.

Booth sat in his office, scanning photos in to attach to the email of case notes and profiles he was sending the lab. There had been a couple more reported sightings, which, surprisingly, had been tracked down by Stennings. He was out there at the moment visiting hotels and showing them the photographs, looking for a fake name the might have used.

There were a few reports he still had to catch up on, but Booth could do those at home. _Bones should have a day in tomorrow_, he thought, _she's going to be worn out by the end of today_.

He was trying _not_ to think about Bones, but he just couldn't help it. The way she'd looked at him outside the car… did she even realise what was happening? _She had to have, she wouldn't look at me_, he reasoned.

He was going to go round and around in a loop thinking about this. _Time to get off that merry-go-round_. He hit 'send' and packed up his files to take home.

He just had to hope that things would go well between them that night. If it was still awkward, he would just have to barrel ahead and make it _not_ be. Whether she was scared, confused or knew exactly what she wanted, he'd just have to handle it.

He went down to the carpark, waving hello to a few people he hadn't seen lately. He didn't know if he was still the favourite topic of water-cooler discussions, but to be honest, he probably was. People just never seemed to get tired of speculating about him and Bones. On more than one occasion, someone had come up to him asking surreptitious questions, trying to get insider information and win in a betting pool.

He turned the SUV out onto the main road and turned towards the lab. He was glad it was only a five to ten minute drive. It was good to be so close to his partner's work.

Booth parked and in a few minutes was walking through the entrance into the lab. He looked around but couldn't see anyone. Bones' office was still closed and empty, so he assumed she would still be in with Angela.

There was just a lamp on in the room, and Angela was sitting at her desk drawing something.

He knocked on the door frame and Ange looked up. 'Hey Booth,' she said softly. She pointed to the other side of the room. 'She's just lying down on the couch.'

Booth went and knelt down next to her. 'Bones. Hey, sleepyhead. Wake up Bones.' He ran his fingers through her hair, smoothing it off her face. She stirred and sat up, looking dazed.

'You ready to come home?' Booth asked. Brennan nodded. He took he hand and pulled her up. He didn't hugely notice things like clothes, but having picked out most of the outfits she wore each day he could tell this skirt was new. 'What happened to your shorts?'

Brennan refused to meet his eye and stared at the ground. 'You okay, Bones?'

Angela sighed theatrically. 'Booth. I'm _only_ telling you this because I know without a doubt that Brennan would say it, if she felt like talking… She got her period and fainted. I think she remembered something, though,' Ange added as Booth looked concernedly at Bones, who was still fixated on the floor.

'Remembered something. Like a flashback?' Booth asked.

'Something like that. She looked like she was trying to scream.'

'Bones?'

Brennan looked away and swiped at her eyes. She was so frustrated with being emotional. She wasn't normally like this. She just wanted things to be back the way they were.

'Do you have her clothes, I can take them home—'

'Nooo, that's okay. You'll probably do something very male like put them in hot water. I will actually get them clean,' she teased.

'Yeah, thanks, Ange,' said Booth distractedly as Ange slipped Brennan the other two pads, which she tucked into the waistband of her skirt.

'See you Sweetie,' Ange said, giving Brennan a last hug.

Booth was quite relieved that things weren't awkward after thismorning. The mood had completely shifted. He slung an arm easily around her waist, giving her a hand to walk straight because she was clearly feeling dizzy and probably light-headed. She let out a few winces of pain as they got to the car, so Booth helped lift her into her seat before getting in and driving out onto the main road.

Twenty minutes later they were taking the lift up to his apartment- he didn't think she'd manage the stairs. She was looking decidedly sick and pale, which Booth hated because she'd been going so well thismorning.

He walked her straight over to the couch and got her to lie down before grabbing some painkillers and a hot water bottle. He was glad he knew what to do for period pain without having to ask her, having learnt from some old girlfriends, because apart from her squint-speak at the crime scene Bones hadn't spoken a word.

'How about watching a different movie?' he suggested, sitting down and handing her the hot water bottle. 'We've got… Speed, Ocean's Eleven, Inception, Jurassic Park, Monty Python, Indiana Jones…' He looked down at Brennan who wasn't really responding. She reached over and pulled one out. He wasn't entirely sure if she _knew_ what she'd picked, but she had been pretty spot on with the whales.

'"How to lose a guy in ten days",' he read. 'Really? You want a romantic comedy? I blame Angela for this, this is her influence,' he said as he slid it into the dvd player. Brennan squirmed uncomfortably and Booth helped her sit up enough to lay her head on his lap. She seemed to settle with the contact, now lying on the hot water bottle and drowsily watching the movie. She was fast asleep within ten minutes but Booth stayed right where he was with her until the dvd finished, wishing things were just simple.


	34. Chapter 34

Brennan woke up to the smell of pancakes cooking. She was lying in Booth's bed, still in her tank top but the tight pencil skirt was gone and she was wearing pyjama pants. She didn't remember getting changed or even going to bed so it must have been Booth. She shrugged and wandered into the bathroom, washing her face and brushing her hair before heading out to find him.

'Morning,' Booth smiled, wearing a 'world's greatest dad' apron. At her confused smile Booth explained, 'It was from Parker, on Fathers' Day last year. Hey, do you want a pancake? The first one was a bit dodgy but the second one turned out great.'

He flipped it onto a plate and carefully handed it to her. She used both hands in case she dropped it, and sat down at the bench on a bar stool. Booth passed her cutlery, and poured on some maple syrup for her. He saw her smile shyly at this and grinned as he poured the next pancake into the frying pan.

Things had shifted, he decided, since their stare-off in the carpark yesterday morning. But he sensed that Bones didn't want things to change right now. She loved him that way too, he knew that. But right now he was her anchor, and she needed that far more than she needed to move things forward.

Booth was glad they were so well-practiced at pushing this issue away. They could have it out in the open, but also put it to one side. He didn't know when the right time would be, but he thought, watching her struggle to cut up the pancake and get it into her mouth, she had a long way to go. They both did.

Booth's cell rang on the bench. Another phone call, another day. 'Booth.'

'Ah, Agent Booth,' came a familiar English accent. 'How nice to hear your voice. I got your text and thought I'd call to reply. I'm not quite able to butcher the English language into text-speak, I'm afraid, technology has run away from me again.' Booth smiled into the mouthpiece, Brennan still slowly eating her breakfast.

'Now I've heard about this business with the lovely Dr Brennan, how is she doing?'

'Yeah, she's good,' Booth said softly, watching her miss her mouth and get syrup all over her cheek. He turned away a little so he could talk more freely. 'She uh, she's doing good, she's improving but it's… you've gotta help me out, I don't know what I'm doing here.'

'Well how about meeting for a cup of tea, say at the Royal Diner? Mid afternoon? I'm taking the afternoon off, giving more of a free reign to my team of chefs, let them spread their wings a bit.'

'Yeah, that sounds good, so three o'clock. Thanks Gordon.'

'Don't mention it, Booth. Do wish her the best from me and I'll see you both then.'

They ended the call and Booth went back to Brennan, who was staring helplessly at the plate of pancakes in front of her, and tearing up at her inability to get the damn fork in her mouth. 'You're doing fine, Bones,' he said quietly, standing close and rubbing her back. 'We'll get there. We will.'

.

.

Cullen called later that morning wanting to know how the Broadsky case was progressing. Booth didn't have much to tell. Until they got a lead, and they had feelers out everywhere, they were stuck going over old ground again, to the point of it being a waste of time.

Booth knew that if he was out there undercover— like he had been when he was searching for Bones— with the amount of information they'd accumulated he would stand a good chance of catching these guys. Cullen probably knew this too. But Booth had made his priorities clear. Maybe he was just playing out a part Broadsky had orchestrated, sitting at home and in his office following paper trails. Maybe that was the reason they had taken her in the first place. He didn't care whether or not he was Jacob's puppet on a string. Being with Bones was more important. He'd seen on numerous occasions how afraid she got when they were separated. Right now more stress was the last thing she needed. He wasn't going to gamble her well-being for the sake of some low-life crook.

Sitting in an armchair with his laptop, so he could keep her near lying on the sofa—the hot water bottle had made another appearance—he traded emails with Shaw and now Stennings, too. There were a number of shelved cases making reference to either Kraus or McCullough that he was sifting through. There were already agents out there interviewing people whose names appeared in those files. He swapped a few emails with Sweets on the profiles of the two men. He classified both of them as sociopaths. "Or psychopaths", Sweets' email read. "Which means they show a pattern of disregard for, and violations of, the rights of others, the pattern starting in childhood."

'So next kid who tries to bully Parker, I'm gonna be thinking of this,' Booth muttered as he read.

"Very low tolerance for frustration. Aggressive and violent responses when frustrated. Callous unconcern for the feelings of others. Disregard for social norms, rules and obligations. Inability to experience guilt. Deception, lying, lack of remorse. Is amused by, or takes pleasure in the physical and psychological suffering of others, including animals. Humiliates and demeans people in the presence of others. Is fascinated by violence, injury, weapons or torture…'

By this point Booth needed a break, or he was going to crack. His blood boiled at the thought of his partner being exposed to people like that, let alone held hostage by them. Bones was strong and tough but she was also fragile. And she was precious. These guys had done something to her, and he wanted to kill them.

He lay on the floor behind Bones on the couch and did a few reps of sit-ups. He had a couple of dumbbells in the corner so he burned off a bit of anger lifting those. When he felt he could cope again, he went and had a shower, breathing in the cleansing steam before changing into a fresh t-shirt and some darker jeans.

It was 2.20 so Booth went to rouse Bones. She was still napping lightly on the couch, curled up around the hot water bottle which had long since gone cold.

'Bones.' He combed his fingers through her hair until she opened her eyes. 'We're going to go meet Gordon Gordon at the diner. You want to get dressed?'

Brennan sat up slowly and nodded. 'You feeling okay to go out?' Booth checked. He could probably get the shrink-turned-chef to come to the apartment in a pinch. However Brennan nodded and got up, wandering into the bedroom.

She emerged from the bathroom ten minutes later, wearing the dress and coat Booth had laid out for her. She'd brushed her hair again and seemed a little more awake. 'Great, Bones. Let's go.' Brennan held onto his arm and they headed down to the SUV.

Twenty minutes later they walked into the diner, seeing Gordon Gordon at their usual table saving their seats. 'Agent Booth, Dr Brennan!' he said cheerily. 'Lovely to see you both.'

'Hi,' Booth smiled, pulling out Bones' chair. Booth thought maybe Gordon could observe Bones while they ate, and then they could have a talk over at the counter. He didn't want anything they said to upset Bones further, reminding her of the things that had changed. And he really wanted the advice.

'I've taken the liberty of ordering,' Gordon said warmly. 'Tea and scones, I'm afraid I just can't pass them up.' Brennan was staring at the table. Gordon was observing her keenly, while keeping the appearance of casual interest. A waitress brought over the tea and scones, and Booth ordered a coffee and a juice.

'I hear the restaurant is a booming success,' Booth said conversationally.

'Oh indeed it is,' Gordon smiled. 'We had a critic come around last week so we're all waiting on tenterhooks for the results. Though I'm pretty confident—we were pretty liberal with the wine which always makes a good impression.'

Booth chuckled and the waitress brought over their drinks. 'Here you go Bones,' he said, sliding her the juice. She was still pretty focussed on the table but took the straw between her lips and sipped. She seemed more on edge, being with a third person Booth noticed. She was more at ease when it was just them and she had his full attention. He couldn't help but smile at this realisation.

Gordon's scones arrived and he and Booth made small talk about the lab, the FBI and the restaurant for a quarter of an hour. When Brennan looked quite disquieted at one point, Booth slung an arm over her shoulder and rubbed the back of her neck, to Gordon's smug bemusement. Booth raised his eyebrows at him and Gordon held up his hands in an 'okay, okay' gesture, and went back to his tea.

When they'd finished their drinks Gordon suggested moving over to the counter, having the same idea as Booth. Brennan looked a bit lost and distressed at being left there by herself, so Booth wrapped one arm around her and spoke some quiet reassurances into her ear which made her seem okay again.

With a quick kiss to her head Booth got up and went over to the bar where Gordon was already seated. 'Okay, so you've gotta give me something,' he said once they were out of earshot. 'I'm flying by the seat of my pants here.'

'Fill me in on what's happened. Young Dr Sweets spoke to me last week, said she'd been held hostage for seven weeks and tortured, and you found her chained naked to the side of a cliff.'

Booth was somewhat chagrined to hear Gordon say it like that, as if Bones' privacy had been invaded by other people knowing what happened, but he nodded. 'Yeah, she was malnourished and covered in dirt and blood. She couldn't focus her eyes on anything or speak… she just kept shaking and convulsing… and she was pumped full of all kinds of drugs, hallucinogens and amphetamines and crazy stuff, I can't even remember half of it.'

'She was in hospital for about a week, then,' said Gordon. Booth nodded. 'Well all the symptoms you've mentioned are still present in her here thismorning. What do you make of that?'

'I don't know. She's a lot better than she was, for a long time she didn't even recognise me.'

'That sounds about right. Hallucinogens, you say. Sweets mentioned those, along with antipsychotics and sedatives. That's a nasty combination.'

'Yeah,' Booth said, looking over at her. She was spinning the salt shaker on the table like a top. 'But I mean, she should be getting back to normal soon, right? Oh—and you'll never believe what she did yesterday, she was at a crime scene with me and picked out what Hodgins says was probably cause of death, something about fractures on the perennial bone or something. She said that. She's said probably five words a day on average, and most of the time she stutters.'

Gordon nodded and gestured for Booth to go on. 'Her muscle shaking isn't getting much better, she was trying to eat pancakes thismorning….' Booth trailed off, unexpectedly overcome by that memory, and how unable he felt to fix it. He took a few moments to just breathe deeply and keep going.

'And she's staying with you,' prompted Gordon.

'Yeah.'

'How's that working out?'

'Good. It's good.' Booth hesitated a little. 'She gets spooked and upset when I'm not with her. I take her almost everywhere with me, just keep her close…'

'She's not scared when she's with you. She trusts you.'

'Well yeah. But I mean, I can't always have her with me… I also need to bring in Broadsky and his evil sidekicks.'

'Kraus and McCullough,' Gordon said. 'Yes, I've had a look at their files. Quite a frightening prospect, even to me to be honest.'

'She was with them,' Booth said, trying to keep it together. Suddenly it all seemed too much. 'For weeks. She was tortured, and she doesn't remember. And she can't _think_. They damaged her and I can't undo it.'

Gordon observed him compassionately, and glanced over at Brennan who was scrunching up a napkin. 'She's still who she is,' he said. 'She's always going to be her, even if some parts of her have been changed. She'll always be Temperance Brennan.'

Booth stared at the wall straight ahead and nodded.

'And as for her mind, I think your example of what happened at the crime scene is cause for great hope. Have you heard of the expression 'sturm und drang'?'

'No, what is that a disease or something?'

'A little more poetic. It's a German phrase, meaning 'storm and stress'. I think it applies to Brennan quite well.'

Booth didn't move his eyes from their spot on the wall. 'Okay, why?'

'Her mind isn't necessarily altered or damaged per se. What seems more likely, in my opinion, is that she's simply shutting down after extreme duress,' Gordon said leaning forward a little, gesturing as he spoke. 'The brain is an organ as much as the liver or the heart, and in many psychosomatic illnesses the blood vessels in the brain constrict to allow the flight-or-fight response. When that instinctual response gets out of whack, and instead of only happening occasionally is working _constantly_, it often feels to the person that their brain is short-circuiting or heavy and slow.'

'And that's likely to get better?'

'It's quite possible. There's a distinction here between the ability to concentrate, and intelligence. I think only one of these is affected. By removing the stress and with the proper care she could very well return to the same level of functioning as before.'

Booth glanced over at Brennan, now tearing up her paper napkin. He took a deep breath before asking the next question. 'Am I doing the right thing?'

'What do you mean, caring for Brennan? Taking her in?'

'Not, you know, leaving her at a hospital with lots of doctors…'

'Oh I quite think you are,' said Gordon emphatically. 'Hospitals are not serene, settling places. And she responds to you _remarkably_ well. I can see that from just observing you two today. You are the closest thing she has to family.'

'She has her dad, and Russ,' Booth said with a shrug. 'Not that I've heard from them, I have no idea where they are.'

'Yes, well often the best families we are part of in life are not with our biological relatives, but with the people we _choose_ to love.'

Booth stopped to absorb this thought for a bit. Then he continued. 'Sweets said she relies on me to sense things for her, since she can't sense them herself.'

'And he's quite right. She completely trusts you to protect her and to act in her best interest. She might show fear responses from time to time, say when having nightmares or remembering things, especially where hallucinogens are involved, but she is not afraid of _you_.'

Booth nodded, feeling a lot better about his decision to bring her home. Even if everyone had told him to leave her in a hospital for her own benefit, he didn't know if he'd be able to do it. He needed to be able to just reach out and touch her at any time, just to know she was there and safe. He probably needed it almost as much as she did.

'I am intrigued, if you'll forgive me, by the situation she was found in.' Booth glanced at him defensively. 'Chained to a cliff,' Gordon went on. 'Are you familiar with the Greek myth of Prometheus?'

Booth shook his head, raising his eyebrows.

'It's an interesting story, and it never hurts to know these things. Prometheus was a Greek god who was charged to mould mankind out of clay, literally giving a face and a voice to the nameless, bringing them into existence. He went further than that though—he cared for mankind and wanted to bless them and improve their lives, so he gave them some of the choice sacrificial meat intended for other the gods. That really got their knickers in a knot, so they shackled him to a cliff and sent a bird to eat his ever-regenerating heart, as an eternal punishment for his rebellious act.'

Booth listened to the story carefully and nodded. 'You think there are parallels between Prometheus and Bones.'

'Well it's just a thought, and since the men you're trying to track down are both highly intelligent and have a morbid interest in torture, I would be highly surprised if they didn't know the myth. Take for example, another part of the story. The gods, wanting revenge on the mortals who Prometheus was trying to help, sent Pandora the box which she opened to release all kinds of evil and mischief into the world. I can well imagine Brennan's captors wanting revenge on her for helping to recover and identify their other victims, and felt she was stealing things that were theirs. To their eyes she might have been a sort of Pandora, a meddling woman interfering in their plans. Perhaps they wanted to make an example of her.'

'So, what happened to Prometheus?'

Gordon's eyes twinkled. 'Well, that's where you come in. You have certainly heard of Hercules, the mythical hero who was half-god and half-mortal, with strength and skill far surpassing any man on earth.'

Booth nodded. 'Yeah, sure.'

'Hercules was addled by the god Juno, or Hera, into a frenzy in which he killed his wife and children. When he regained his sanity he was devastated and set out to perform the mythical Herculanean tasks in the hope of making atonement for his actions. It was Hercules who rescued Prometheus from his shackles on the cliff and eternal torment.'

Booth sat for a moment and let that sink in. He was surprised how closely the myth followed the events of that night he found Bones. 'Do you think there's anything in the story to suggest what their next move will be?'

'Or their endgame? Possibly. Or that could be as far as the analogy goes. Clearly they consider themselves above the law, like gods, angry and capricious and exacting revenge at whim. But as for what they have planned, we can only speculate.'

Booth was about to ask about the shaking but heard a whimper coming from their table. He looked around to see Bones with her knees held to her chest, screwing her eyes shut in pain.

'Whoa, Bones,' Booth said, getting off the barstool and sitting down next to her. 'You okay?'

Brennan nodded, which was ridiculous because she clearly wasn't. 'What's wrong?' Brennan didn't respond except to bury her head in her knees.

Booth could figure out what was wrong pretty easily. 'Let's get you home. You can have painkillers and hot water bottles and hot chocolate.' He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. 'Come on. Let's go, we'll go straight home.'

Brennan nodded and Booth helped her stand up. She was a bit hunched over and looked like she was about to start crying.

'Is she alright?' Gordon asked concernedly.

'Yeah, I'm just gonna get her home. Thanks for today Gordon.'

'The pleasure's all mine,' he smiled, as Booth threw some money on the counter and took Brennan out. He watched them cross the road and saw Brennan stumble, and Booth stop and pick her up carrying her the rest of the way to the car.

'I really hate sociopaths,' Gordon muttered, waving to the waitress to order more tea.


	35. Chapter 35

Booth opened the SUV door with some difficulty and put Brennan down on the seat. She had tears leaking from her eyes. 'Hang on, I've got some paracetamol in the glove box,' Booth told her, rummaging through it. He popped out two tablets and grabbed a water bottle. 'Here you go.' Brennan slipped the tablets in her mouth and swallowed them with the water. Booth put her seat belt on and closed her door, leaving her to curl up against the window.

Booth got back to his apartment in record time, and helped Bones into the elevator. The painkillers were beginning to take effect, and without too much trouble he got her back to the couch where she at once lay down and curled into a ball. Booth filled the hot water bottle again and sat on the couch in front of her. She cuddled the warm bottle, and Booth put his hand on her side and massaged her waist, trying to relieve some of the cramps.

After a few minutes when she didn't seem to be in as much pain, Booth got out his cell phone and called Angela.

'Hello?'

'Hi Angela, it's Booth.'

'Hey, what's up?'

'It's just Bones… she's in a lot of pain, she was crying…'

'What, from cramps or something?'

'Well yeah, I'm assuming, but this has never happened to her before. I mean, we've been partners for six years. I mean, I'm observant, I would know if this was normal.'

'Oh well honey, that's because she takes the pill to regulate her hormones, it reduces cramping a lot. She wouldn't have had it for a couple of months now. If she was taking it this wouldn't happen.'

'Oh, right,' Booth said, glancing down at Bones who was staring into space, though had shifted herself closer to him. 'So painkillers and heat packs, right?'

'Yeah that should help. You're doing a good job, Booth.'

Booth nodded, feeling a little more confident about this arrangement after hearing approval from Angela, Sweets and Gordon Gordon. 'Thanks Ange. Anything else I should know?'

'Not that I can think of. It's a good thing you know how to handle this, I won't ask where you learned.'

'Huh, yeah.'

'Call me any time, okay?'

'Yeah I will. I'll see you later.'

'Bye.'

They ended the call and Booth put on the whale dvd again. He kept the volume low so Bones could fall asleep if she wanted to. He got his laptop and started working, still on the edge of the couch with Brennan behind so he could keep a close eye on her. She seemed to feel more secure when he did that, covering her from anyone that could come at her from in front or behind. Booth found himself imagining her in a cell, exposed and defenceless for days or weeks on end. He didn't know how much of her captivity she'd been made to spend without clothing— sensory deprivation, cold, hunger, lack of sanitation and thirst, even deprivation of sleep were all recurring features listed in the McCullough file. It was little wonder that she liked to hide behind Booth now.

Brennan shifted onto her back, and smiled sleepily up at Booth. He returned the smile, touched that she has been the one to smile first. 'How are you feeling?' he asked. She shrugged. Booth turned a little and found her lower belly with his hand, and rubbed in gentle concentric circles.

He saw the tension on her face relax as he rubbed.

_Sturm und drang_, he thought. _ Stress and storm_.

.

A few hours later Booth was sitting at the kitchen bench eating pasta with a tomato-vegetable sauce. Bones' was in the saucepan since she was still napping on the couch, not having much energy after battling cramps for two days. He poured some milk into a glass and sculled it, and was about to go take a shower when his cell rang.

'Booth.'

'Booth, get your ass down here!' came Cullen's voice. 'We've got a location, a warehouse at 240 Chingford Road. He's still there, you've got fifteen minutes!'

Cullen disconnected and Booth hurried over to Brennan. 'Bones,' he said, shaking her gently. 'Hey, wake up. You with me?'

Bones opened her eyes and blinked at him. She'd been unconsciously scratching the inside of her elbow while she slept.

'I've gotta get going right now, there's a crime scene. Do you want to stay here or come?'

Brennan seemed not to take this in. Booth had to make a decision—he decided to just take her. 'Come on, up you get,' he said, hauling her to her feet. Half-pulling half-carrying her, Booth grabbed his keys and his gun and headed down to the car.

Brennan looked a little shell-shocked as they sped down the highway with the siren blaring. She scratched nervously at a spot on her arm. Booth had to focus on driving safely so he wasn't able to do much to comfort her. They overtook a whole queue of cars stopped at a red light and finally turned onto the road where the warehouse was.

The site was swarming with cops. Booth killed the engine and turned to Bones, who looked distressed by all the noise and lights. 'Hey, just wait here for me, okay? You'll be able to see me. I won't go very far.'

Brennan was scratching at her arm again, and made no response, and Booth was seriously questioning if he'd made the right call in bringing her. He leaned over and kissed her forehead, then hopped out of the car, locking the doors with the button on his keyring.

'You keep an eye on that car for me,' he yelled to a cop who didn't seem to be doing much.

He strode into the building, where half a dozen FBI agents were photographing the scene and questioning a couple of youths who had apparently called it in.

'Agent Booth!' Genevieve Shaw waved him over. 'Have you been briefed yet?'

'No, just the location. What have we got?'

'Those guys recognised Yoseph Kraus from the 'wanted' signs. Saw him loading equipment into a blue sedan.'

'Did anyone catch him?'

'He was gone ten minutes ago, but we've got three guys on the traffic feeds to find him.'

Booth turned to look into the vast cavity of the empty building. Apart from men photographing everything, it was sparse. Booth noticed something in the far corner and, just trusting his gut, went over to check it out.

The guys were focusing on a few old crates on the floor, and obvious marks in the dirty floor where large items had stood. Whatever this place had been used for, it had been well and truly emptied.

Reaching the back wall, Booth kicked at a sun-bleached old 'welcome' mat, the word almost illegible with tufts of straw missing. It slid easily to one side and revealed a trap door in the concrete. The obvious lack of dust showed it had been used recently.

'Hey, can I get a torch over here?' Booth called. One of the techs brought one over as Booth knelt down to open the door. There was a padlock on it. 'And bolt cutters!' he called. 'Over here!'

Someone brought the bolt cutters and Booth made short work of the padlock. He lifted the heavy concrete slab and pushed it to one side. There was a dodgy-looking rope ladder leading down.

He balanced the torch in three fingers of one hand, and climbed into the dark. It was a good twenty feet down, and cold. He shone to torch around the basement.

There was a crude dirt floor. A lot of the room looked like someone had tried to extend the walls by hacking into the earth, and bits of dead tree roots poked out in places. The scent of ammonia stung his nose, but he also detected rotting food, dead animals and fecal matter. The blood he could actually see, swinging the beam of light over the rough floor.

One part of the floor seemed to be a bit cleaner than the rest. There were claw marks on the wall behind, as if someone had tried to climb it.

Inspecting the perimeter of the room, he found two dead rats, some spiders and cockroaches, drops of dried blood, excrement and rotten food. When the smell became too much he tugged on the ladder to test its strength and climbed out.

Crawling back onto the warehouse floor, he tossed the light to a nearby tech. 'You might want to go down there and take some photos,' he told the guy. 'Hold your breath.'

The rest of the agents were still searching for evidence but Booth didn't think there'd be all that much to find. Kraus had obviously been removing gear from this place for a while now.

'Booth!' one of the police yelled. 'Over here!'

He had found a metal suitcase among the jumble of old crates and debris. He put the case on the ground and let Booth pry open the lock. It snapped off as he closed the bolt cutters, and he raised the lid.

'No way.'

'Is that…'

'Those syringes?'

'Holy crap…'

Shaw and Cullen came over to join the crowd. 'What've we got, Booth?' asked Cullen.

Booth stared in genuine horror at the open suitcase. 'These would be Yoseph Kraus' torture instruments.'

The inside of the case was lined with syringes, small bottles of non-lethal poison, an array of knives, sharp and dull, and a bunch of instruments that Booth didn't know what the hell they did but just looking at them was enough to freak him out.

'We need to get this to the lab,' Booth said after a moment. 'Can you courier this to the Jeffersonian? And get some floodlights down through that trapdoor. I need any evidence you can find— debris, soil samples, the lot.'

Booth got up, bringing the metal case with him. Then he found himself looking at Brennan.

Since everyone was checking out the trapdoor and the briefcase, no one had noticed her wander in. Her eyes were fixed on the case, and Booth somehow just knew what was going to happen. Bones had stopped dead where she stood, taking in the sharp metal instruments and vials of liquid with an expression of horror that in all the time he'd known her, he'd never seen cross her face.

'Bones.'

His word hung thick in the air between them, although no one else had realised she was there. She just looked at the briefcase, and stared at him, and then she ran.

Booth took a second to process this. He took a couple of steps, then realised he was still holding the briefcase. He stooped and put it down on the dusty concrete.

Brennan wasn't wearing any shoes, but with fear and adrenaline pumping through her system she moved fast. A couple of techs had turned around and were pointing her out, but now she was out of the building and disappearing into the night.

Booth took chase. He ran outside onto the ratty grass of the industrial block, to see her down the far end of the street. She was wild with terror. Usually she ran only slightly slower than him but the emotion she was experiencing gave her an edge. Booth sprinted past two street lamps, Brennan disappearing to the right at the intersection, and he realised he needed help, and a car. She could turn down any side-street and he'd lose her. He slowed down and turned around, back to the cops who had come out to see what was happening.

'I need someone on this!' he yelled out-of-breath. 'I need her brought in.'

The techs and agents were spilling out of the warehouse to see what was happening. A cop got in his car and pulled onto the road.

'I need some cars out there!' Booth bellowed, getting in the SUV. Two other cop cars roared to life and followed down the road. Booth pulled out behind them and sped off.

By now she could have gone in any direction. He could have followed on foot, but it was too risky—this wasn't the best part of town, and if Bones got lost out here he'd have a hell of a time finding her. He made a sharp right turn at the end of the road. There were a dozen streets leading off on both sides, rundown homes and decrepit old businesses everywhere. Booth slowed down at every street and peered down them, scanning for her. By the time he got to the far dead-end of that street she'd had a whole five minutes to disappear.

The three cop cars were nowhere in sight. Booth backed up and headed in the other direction, checking down the same streets in case he'd missed something. A couple of the street lamps were out, and litter and weeds covered the footpath. He slowed down, double and triple-checking he hadn't gone past her. He got back to the first intersection, and even though Bones had turned right, he drove left.

There was a vacant lot with tangles of tall grass, and a lone fluorescent street light on the far side. Booth saw a cop car cruise down the street opposite, and a second car_. Two cars, _Booth thought._ They must have found something. She can't have gotten very far_.

Booth skidded around the block and went after the cops. He could see police moving around on foot out on the street, and then he saw Bones. _They found her._ Booth released a deep breath in relief. He pulled up haphazardly behind the other cars as three cops surrounded Brennan, trapping her in.

Brennan was obviously terrified out of her mind. Three, now four men cut off her route of escape, and she tried to push one of them back so she could get out. Booth jumped out of the car leaving the keys the ignition. As Brennan raised her arm to shield her face and burst free two of the men lunged forward to restrain her. Booth was running , trying to get there, but Bones was now struggling so violently that a third cop took out a taser.

Booth tried to yell out 'stop' but he was running too fast. The man reached out with the stun gun and held it against Brennan. There was a blue flash of electric current, and Brennan stumbled, collapsing to the ground.

An ambulance siren was warbling towards them, someone must have called for one, but Booth could only see Brennan, falling so slowly onto the road. He wanted to shout at them to stop, that she was just afraid but it was too late. Booth got to them and fell on the ground kneeling beside her. _Bones._

She had crumpled onto the bitumen and wasn't moving. She might have been unconscious. The ambulance turned into their street.

'WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO THAT FOR!' Booth boomed, not even trying to hide his anger.

'She was crazy! She was fighting—'

Booth was focussed on Bones again— he didn't know whether to pick her up or move her or what. He was so furious and horrified he could hardly see straight. It was all happening so fast. Paramedics were suddenly wheeling a stretcher out of the ambulance and moving him aside, lifting Brennan onto the bed, and now loading her back into the van.

Booth just stood there. One of the paramedics was asking something and he just shook his head and stepped backwards. This was too much. He couldn't ride with her in the ambulance, it was just too much—he walked in a daze back to the SUV and got in, turned around, then after the ambulance went past he just followed after it. He checked the rear view mirror to see the police still standing round in a circle, around the place his partner had collapsed. The ambulance had the siren turned on again, but Booth suddenly couldn't drive. The van streaked around the corner, going back past the crime scene, off and out of sight. Booth sat stunned in the idling car, trying to drive but unable to move.

The hospital. She was going to the hospital. Booth just sat there frozen. He just couldn't process what had happened. She'd been so scared, seeing that briefcase. She recognised it. She'd been doing so well today. _So well._ And now, now… Booth didn't know what happened now. The hospital. He had to get to the hospital.

A car pulled up near him and someone got out. There was a knock on his car door and it opened. 'Agent Booth? Are you okay?' asked Shaw.

Booth leaned forward onto the steering wheel. 'She's gone, they shocked her,' was all he could say.

'Do… you want me to drive you to the hospital?' Shaw asked.

Booth didn't know. He didn't know what the hell he wanted to do. He just wanted to be away from all of this. 'No,' he said. After a minute. 'No I think I'm just going to drive…'

Shaw nodded and backed off. 'Yeah, okay. That's good. I'll… I'll see you.'

She walked back to her car and Booth sat for a bit, still too stunned to move. The cop cars drove past and away. Booth felt hate coursing through him at those cops. _Bastards. Son of a bitch_.

He slammed a fist down on the steering wheel, hitting the horn and making a loud _beeeep_. It echoed in the quiet street. A light came on in someone's window.

Booth sat for a couple more minutes, then he shook himself out of his stupor. He needed to do something. He was in his car, he was going to drive. Fast, out on a highway. Maybe put the siren on and just speed. He flipped the radio onto a heavy metal station and cranked up the volume and then, much like the cops and the ambulance, he disappeared into the night.

.

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**A/N **

**Cliffie, hope you guys liked the chapter! Let me know what you think :o) Next up, we meet someone evil face-to-face :o)**


	36. Chapter 36

It must have been five in the morning. Booth was… well, he didn't know exactly where he was. He was on the coast overlooking the beach, lying on the hood of his car, staring up at the stars.

He'd spent several hours emptying the gas tank by driving as fast as he could manage, with music as loud as the car stereo would go. It wasn't exactly safe, and if he hadn't been in an FBI vehicle he would probably have been arrested. Maybe he still would be. He didn't care.

His jeans were sopping wet because at one point he'd decided to go swimming. He just didn't want to think, and focusing on his freestyle and not being caught in a rip was pretty effective to that end.

He'd also run a couple of miles along the beach. It was nice at this time of the morning—the sun not yet up, the world peaceful and quiet, not another soul in view. The crescent moon gave a little light and even though it was close to a city there were enough stars visible to make out some constellations.

He remembered lying like this with Brennan a couple of years ago. Talking about aliens or something. He loved how he could pick the silliest things to talk about, and she would always eagerly listen and debate with him. He could really say whatever was on his mind and she would somehow say exactly the right thing. They didn't need to have secrets. They both liked that.

Booth found himself growing tense again, thinking about Brennan. He slid off the hood and knelt on the beach and started doing push-ups, trying not to breathe in the sand too much. He lost count of how many he'd done. When his muscles were fatiguing, he let himself collapse onto the sand, feeling it shift and mould to his shape, a perfect imprint.

He suddenly felt tired. He'd been so pumped all night, it was going to be a hard crash. He remotely locked the car and shoved his keys into a pocket, and lay back closing his eyes, the sound of the soft breakers lulling him to sleep.

It was a couple of hours later when he woke up. Since he was still on his stomach the sun hadn't woken him right away, but looking around, everything looked fresh and golden, bathed in soft morning light. He felt about a hundred years old, hardly having got into a REM cycle and having to get up. He probably could have just laid there all day, but he really wanted to go home. Most of the anger and frustration from the night before had dissipated, and now he just wanted to collapse into bed with an asprin and his phone switched off.

Part of him wanted to go to the hospital, find Bones… but right now he just couldn't. He unlocked the car and dialled Angela, quickly telling her what happened and asked if she could go check on her. Angela said she'd leave right away and call him back when she'd seen Brennan.

Booth felt like a zombie driving home. He sat at a green light until four cars were honking at him to move. He pulled into his parking bay on autopilot, and took five minutes to get out of the car.

Crawling into bed he felt like a wreck. This was too hard. He couldn't do it. If Bones was still here, struggling but responsive, it would be okay. But after last night, he needed help with this. Or a break. He needed to get things back together.

.

She was kissing him. It went on for ages. He could feel it. Then she was ripped out of his arms, moving backwards, being pulled away by some invisible force. 'Booth!' she was calling, reaching out for him. Booth tried to grab her hand but he was frozen to the spot. He looked down and his legs were bronze like a statue, set into a concrete podium, and she just kept being dragged away, sobbing and crying out for him. He was shouting her name, begging her to come back but they were being drawn further and further apart. 'Bones!' Her name ripped from his mouth, and then he woke up.

His phone was ringing. He fumbled for it on the bedside table and brought it to his ear, holding it upside-down.

'Booth.'

'Hey! It's Angela, I've just been in with Brennan.'

Booth held the phone the right way and sat up. 'What time is it?'

'It's four pm,' Angela said compassionately. 'I called you a couple of times but you must have slept through it. Did you just wake up?'

'Uh, yeah,' Booth said, still a little disoriented after his dream. 'What happened, is she okay?'

'She's asleep at the moment, but it was really lucky she came here. She tested positive for PCP.'

'Whaaaat? No. No, Bones hasn't had any drugs. I've been with her all the time. Except for like, fifteen minutes last night… but she was in the SUV with a ton of cops, how…'

'Sweetie, hang on. They found a ruptured capsule in her arm, under one of her scars, filled with PCP. A high dose.'

'In her arm.'

Angela was sniffing. 'She's been clawing and scratching at her inner elbow, and when the doctor checked it out he could tell something was in her arm. It must have been there for weeks and weeks, the wound had healed up. They're checking her over to see if there are any more.'

'Wait a second. Someone cut her open, and put time-release drug capsules in her.'

'They never would have thought to look for that when she was brought in,' Ange went on quietly. 'I mean that's practically science fiction, it's malicious…'

Booth couldn't speak for a moment. 'These guys are smart,' he said finally. 'They tortured her and set it up so she'd keep on _being_ tortured.'

'One of the police rode with her in the ambulance so he could explain what had happened. He stayed around til I came. The taser… she was shocked and…' Now Angela was having trouble talking.

'Is she okay?'

'She's uh, she's sleeping. They're keeping her asleep because she was obviously hallucinating.'

'She looked right at me,' Booth thought aloud.

'Oh Booth, she wouldn't have known it was you,' Angela insisted. 'She wouldn't run away like that. The cop told me about the briefcase. She probably recognised it, and the warehouse… She would have thought she was seeing her captors.'

'Yeah,' Booth said, resting his head against the headboard. 'What um… Are they keeping her in there?'

'Yeah, probably a couple of days. They said it can take eight days or more to get the drug out of her system.'

Booth shut his eyes. It just made him so angry, that people thought they could do this to her. The danger of messing around with her mind and body with these sick games, the damage it could cause. It shouldn't have happened a second time. He wanted Kraus, and he wanted him dead.

'They're checking her over really carefully, in case there's anything else then,' Booth said rather than asked, thinking about the capsule.

'Yeah,' Ange said.

They were quiet for a while, just staying on the phone, feeling less alone knowing someone else was going through this too.

'She's um, she's got wounds on her feet,' Angela said after a bit. 'She got glass in one foot and was bleeding, they had to remove all the pieces while she was asleep…'

Booth closed his eyes, wishing this had all been just a nightmare and he could wake up.

'How long is she going to be asleep for?'

'I don't know, they said she had a high dose so they're monitoring her really carefully for side effects and stuff. I think she'll be pretty out of it for a few days at least.'

'Dammit,' Booth sighed.

'I'm gonna go home, I left Michael with Hodgins,' Angela said apologetically.

'No, that's fine, thanks Angela,' Booth said.

'Go do something relaxing, Booth,' Angela told him. 'You know I love you and all but you really sound like hell.'

Booth chuckled in spite of everything. 'I think I'll go to the shooting range,' he said.

Angela said goodbye and they hung up, Booth getting out of bed to get dressed. He was going to the Hoover.

.

.

Booth drove to the shooting range feeling significantly better than he had last night. It was five o'clock so he figured he'd go there first to let off steam, maybe drop by the gym, and then get to work on plotting revenge. He sort of smiled at that thought. Not everyone has a job where they can literally shoot or arrest their enemies.

Knowing that Brennan was stable was a great weight off his mind. She wouldn't remember the long night following her run-away act. She would have hallucinated and then passed out, and she'd be too out of it to continue hallucinating while in hospital. As much as he wanted her with him right now, having her sleeping in the safety of a hospital gave him a few days of free reign to search for Kraus. He was fixated on finding Kraus, the one who had physically tortured her, more than the other two. He wasn't going to get away with this.

He arrived at the shooting range and went on in. There were a couple of other agents practicing, but the centre lane was free so he collected a gun and some ammo and got down to business.

He pictured Kraus' head on the target sheet and got five bullets through the exact same tiny hole. _Bullseye_. He shot him in the jaw, thinking _mandible_, and not remembering which names fit which bones, just randomly thought _occipital, scapula, frontal bone, clavicle, phalanges, _firing for each one. He finished the rounds and got a new target sheet. This one was for Broadsky. Booth fired six times through the heart, then once in the middle of his forehead. He emptied more bullets into his kneecaps and feet, then punctured both lungs.

The next was McCullough. Booth just shot him all over, not really caring where the bullets went, as long as they all hurt. Half an hour later Booth had signed out, feeling a lot less stressed, and headed up to his office.

.

There were a few agents and night staff still working. The lights in the halls were still on. Booth entered his office and flicked on his lamp, sitting down and opening up a new file that had been left on his desk.

'Well it's nice to see you back in here, Cher,' came a familiar voice from the door. Booth looked up and smiled.

'Hi Caroline.'

'Hello Booth. I see you found the Kraus file.'

'Yeah, came in here to work on it. I want that guy dead,' he said without flinching.

'Well don't get too hot-headed. I agree he's a nasty piece of work but I don't want to be hauling _your_ ass out of jail.'

Booth shrugged. 'Yeah, that's a point.'

'How's Dr Brennan? I haven't even seen her since she got back.'

'She's asleep in hospital,' he deadpanned. 'They got to her again. I'm not taking her home til I'm satisfied there is _nothing_ they've missed.'

Caroline nodded sympathetically. 'Well I'm glad she has you. That stubborn woman charging around the countryside like she's damn invincible …'

Booth grinned. 'Ha, yeah. Well, I trust her. I just don't…_ entrust_ her to anyone else.'

'You bring her to see me when she's released,' Caroline said. 'I've heard all about this case, and I want to see with my own eyes that those bastards didn't win.'

'Sure,' Booth said. 'But right now I just want to get them off the streets.'

'Well get started on that file! I brought it down here myself. Agent Genny Shaw's team are working on those traffic cameras all day, one of them's on live cameras right now in case Kraus shows.'

Booth opened the file. There were dozens of photos of the warehouse, the cellar and the metal torture chest. Someone had found coarse ropes in the cellar, covered in rubbed skin that was sure to be Bones'. Everything had been sent to the Jefffersonian that morning. Booth was about to call up Hodgins when his phone rang.

Caroline, still standing in the doorway watched as he answered. 'Booth.'

'Agent Booth, we've got Kraus—he's heading east down Route 50, I've called it into the cops to intercept but if you could get there—'

Booth was on his feet, out the door past Caroline and jabbing the button on the lift.

The elevator dinged and Booth got in, closely followed by Caroline. 'Oh I'm not gonna miss this one, Cherie,' she said at his questioning look. 'I'm navigating.'

Booth nodded and kept listening to the agent giving details of where Kraus had been spotted, the number plate, the planned point he would be intercepted—impatiently gripping his keys until the doors opened in the car park.

Booth ran to the SUV and got in, Caroline just able to shut her door before he took off.

Booth handed Caroline the phone so she could talk to the agent and navigate. He flicked on the lights and siren and sped almost recklessly toward the highway.

'Take the next left,' said the GPS when Caroline had punched in the location. 'No, no there's road works there,' Caroline said. 'Take the _second_ next left.'

Booth almost laughed at this situation—being directed by both the GPS _and_ Caroline to capture a deranged psychopath . The SUV entered the highway and merged, then overtook a truck to speed along on the shoulder.

'About four miles the cops are coming on to intercept. Look out for a spike strip!' Caroline relayed to Booth.

The traffic was slowing up, and Booth veered out further onto the shoulder to get around it. The cops had essentially stopped traffic with a spike strip but Booth could see the blue sedan in the distance. It had gone wide to avoid it too.

'Is there a second one?' Booth asked Caroline.

'Is there a second one—yes there is. Two miles, he says to keep going at this speed, they'll remove it from the road by the time we catch up.'

A few minutes later Booth could see the sedan suddenly brake and skid in a circle as the strip punctured its tyres. Booth sped up and the cops removed the strip so he could loop around and block the sedan.

There were already police cars waiting, hidden behind the concrete supports of an overpass, and they sailed out to surround the car.

Booth killed the engine and he and Caroline got out as Kraus stepped out of his vehicle, hands in the air.

'It's nice to finally meet you,' Booth said darkly as Kraus was being handcuffed. Kraus turned his head to look at Booth and spat, but not nearly far enough to hit him. The cops bundled Kraus into the secure back of a police car and offered to drive him back to the Hoover for interrogation. Booth had no desire to have Kraus in the SUV so agreed, and the cops grabbed and packed their gear.

Traffic in the distance was beginning to flow again as the spike strip was removed and the cars made a u-turn legal only for law enforcement and emergency services.

'Have I mentioned how much I hate this guy?' Booth asked.

'You might have,' Caroline replied. 'But I hate him too so feel free to tell me again.'

'I'm going to have a hell of a time interrogating him,' Booth went on. 'He's a psychopath, and you never want to talk to one of them too long, they get into your head.'

'No guilt, no remorse.'

'Exactly.'

'Sounds like someone else I know.'

Booth glanced at her as they followed the cop car, keeping their hostage in plain view. 'What does that mean?'

'One Max Keenan, if I remember. Couple of years ago now.'

'Max, he's not a psychopath, he's just…. he loves his family. I can respect that. Psychopaths don't love anyone but themselves, it's all about manipulation.'

'You should probably get Sweets in that interrogation room with you.'

'Yeah. I might make Kraus sit in a cell overnight, get some sleep and come back tomorrow. But I want constant surveillance, and he's going to have to be searched, he's the type of guy who'd put poison ink in his pen and a swiss-knife in his shoe.'

'Have you got DNA evidence linking him to Brennan?'

'More than likely given. We've got his little case of sunshine.'

'The torture instruments.'

'Yeah, there'll be prints all over that. Haven't contacted the squints yet, but now we have the guy we'll have something to match it to.'

'Good. I'll sleep a lot better once he's in solitary confinement.'

'Yeah,' said Booth with grim satisfaction. 'No one in there he can torture but himself.'

As night fell they arrived back at the Hoover and watched as Kraus was manhandled into a holding cell.

'I want constant video surveillance,' Booth insisted to the guards before they left. 'Search him for weapons but have backup. There's no telling what this guy might be capable of.'

Taking a last look at Kraus' expressionless face, Booth followed Caroline out the door and back to the lifts. 'Now don't forget to bring your girlfriend around, I'll be expecting you,' Caroline said as she got out of the lift on her floor.

'Oh, Bones, she's not—'

'Uh uh, Cher, I don't want to hear it,' said Caroline throwing her hands up. 'You two come round and I'll talk some sense into you both. I can't take this mess any longer, the two of you need to sort it out.'

Booth grinned. 'I'll bring her. See you Caroline,' he said as the doors closed.

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**A/N See I couldn't leave you guys up in the air :o) Coming up next—an interrogation, and some lab results. Oooh.**


	37. Chapter 37

At eight the next morning Booth woke up after a pretty decent sleep. He got dressed and headed down to the Hoover. It was time to interrogate Kraus.

Sweets was already waiting outside the room when Booth showed up. 'Booth, hey,' he said. 'Thanks for the text, you ready?'

'Yeah, I really am.'

'How's Dr Brennan?'

'You know I'd prefer not to think about that right now, I might just reach over and strangle this guy…'

'Did you get the results from the Jeffersonian?'

'Yep, we've just gotta get a sample out of this guy.'

'Booth.' Sweets stopped him as he reached for the doorknob.

'What?'

'Remember what I mentioned to you, about these guys being sociopaths. Kraus has no moral compass, no sense of right or wrong, he uses and manipulates everyone around him, including you and me. This guy will say anything, truth or fiction to manipulate you.'

Booth opened the door and he and Sweets went in. Kraus was sitting handcuffed to his chair, watching them superciliously. They sat down opposite.

'Yoseph Kraus,' Booth said, looking at the file and spreading it on the table. 'I'm really very pleased to finally meet you.'

'You must be Booth,' Kraus said. 'I've never heard a woman scream the same name as many times as she screamed for you—'

Sweets grabbed Booth's arm as he raised it. Booth looked back at him angrily, and Sweets lifted his eyebrows to communicate 'C_ool it'_. Mouth stretching into a flat smile, he silently reminded Booth '_He's playing you'_.

Kraus watched their interaction with interest. 'She was very fun to work with. So _stoic_. Wouldn't even cry the first few days. I got her to whimper for you, though…'

Booth was breathing so heavily, he was actually wondering if he should even be involved in this session.

'We have enough evidence to detain you indefinitely,' Sweets said, taking his cue from Booth. 'This will go to trial. The question is whether you want to help us along here, or if you're going to make this more difficult for yourself.'

'I assume you're referring to my associates,' Kraus said, his eyes twinkling creepily. He was enjoying this.

'We are,' Sweets deadpanned.

Kraus smiled happily. Which made Booth's skin crawl. 'What deal will I get then? Reduced sentence, out on bail?'

Sweets glanced at Booth. 'We don't negotiate with terrorists,' Booth said flatly.

'Oh,' Kraus said in perfectly pitched surprised. _Every expression, every intonation seems false_, thought Booth.

'We will keep it in mind, at the trial, whether you have been forthcoming and cooperative…or not,' Sweets returned. 'This isn't a barter system.'

'And I suppose you think I will assist you,' Kraus said.

_It is impossible to read this guy_, Booth decided.

'No, not really,' Booth countered. 'I'm going to bring your pals in with or without your help.'

'Really,' Kraus said silkily. 'I'd have thought you might be more focussed on helping your lovely friend. She really _needs_ you right now.'

'And you'd know all about that, wouldn't you,' Sweets jabbed.

'Oh, well I will just say that I have a few little _surprises_ in store for you.'

'What, like the PCP cap?' said Booth, putting on his poker face.

'Ah, so you found my little present.'

Booth schooled his features to be neutral, and rather than reply he just raised his eyebrows.

'Well you'd better keep your eyes open for my next little gift.'

'I don't think there _is_ a next little gift,' Booth said leaning forwards. 'You've got nothing, and you want to scare us into cutting you a deal.'

'Ah, well the game's up, you've got me,' Kraus smiled. But Sweets had seen a flash in his eyes before he smiled, a tiny crack in the façade. He was bluffing.

Booth stared at the guy. He was amazed that Kraus could keep such intense eye contact, completely unaffected by his own monstrosity. He was trying to draw them both in, to get them to react and respond. It wasn't going to work.

'What did you do to her,' Booth asked quietly.

Kraus' eyes lit up in glee. 'She doesn't remember! This is wonderful, it's completely gone.'

'What's completely gone?'

'Booth,' warned Sweets.

But Yoseph reeled him in. 'He did it! McCullough did it. She'll never talk.'

Booth suddenly found himself getting up from his chair and punching Kraus in the nose and grabbing him by the head— Then Sweets was hauling him outside, with considerable difficulty because Booth was comparatively stronger.

'That son of a bitch,' Booth heaved, slamming his hand on the door.

'For at least part of that, he was lying—'

'But not that last thing,' Booth said. 'He's been waiting for this.'

'I wouldn't underestimate the… complexity of the lies this man is able to spin,' Sweets said. 'It can be next to impossible to tell whether or not he is lying at any one point. Most psychiatrists actually refuse to treat sociopaths, because their webs of lies can be so destructive and can drag their therapist in—'

'He said "_she'll never talk"_. Or remember. Bones has trouble talking and remembering. He tortured her, he knows something. He might know _everything_, but we can't trust him.'

Booth turned and looked at the closed door. 'I should never have gone in there, I should have known better.'

'Booth, don't berate yourself for doing everything you can.

'I can't… I can't leave Bones like that. With parts of her memory missing, or not talking, or... I just, can't let that happen.'

Sweets nodded after a moment and could only agree. 'Yeah. Totally . You're right. You shouldn't take that from Kraus. Look, we'll get the other two, and then we can cross-examine them separately to get the real story. But all we can do right now, is just get the DNA and lock him up.'

Booth looked at his hand, where a short black hair was in between his fingers. 'I guess I should take this to the lab,' he said.

'Yeah, that'd be good. Productive. I'll get some other agents onto Kraus, we'll get something true out of him eventually. I'll let you know as soon as we have something solid.'

Booth nodded, still carefully holding the hair, then took out an evidence bag from his pocket. Sweets looked surprised. 'I thought you hate those things as much as wearing gloves,' he said.

'Yeah, well without Bones here I have to try and think like her,' Booth said. 'I'm gonna get going. You work on the psychopath.' Booth clapped Sweets on the shoulder and headed downstairs.

'"You work on the psychopath,"' Sweets repeated as Booth held up a hand to wave goodbye. 'Why does it feel like I got the short straw in this deal?'

.

Cam and Hodgins were engrossed in a computer screen when Booth swiped himself onto the platform.

'Hey, how's the DNA going?'

'Well it's looking pretty good to match Kraus' profile. Is that a sample?'

Booth gave her the evidence bag. 'Yep. I got it when I punched him in the face.'

Both Cam and Hodgins looked impressed. 'Was that your interrogation technique?' asked Cam.

'Nah, just something I throw in once in a while, spice things up… How's all the evidence from the crime scene?'

Booth followed Hodgins to one of the benches where everything was spread out and labelled. 'We've analysed the DNA from the blood, the skin fragments on the ropes and the gag,' he said, trying to say this as gently as possible. 'Well… this was definitely where Brennan was held.'

Booth nodded, staring at all the labelled evidence, each piece representing something horrible Bones had gone through. Things she may never remember, never be able to talk about. Booth couldn't stop going over in his mind what Kraus had said. That Brennan wasn't going to talk, that she couldn't remember. Booth just wanted her to be awake now, so he could take her home. He was going to be there for her no matter what. If she wasn't able to do her job, if she lost everything… the two of them would need each other. Booth would take her everywhere with him for the rest of his life if he had to. He wasn't going to abandon her.

'I'm putting this through now, it'll be a couple of hours to get the results,' Cam said, indicating the evidence bag.

'Great, thanks Cam.'

'Booth, there's something else,' Hodgins said after a moment.

Booth looked at him with a 'what the hell now?' expression.

'From the insect activity in the fecal matter and the deterioration of the skin fragments, I have to conclude she was not kept in that cell for the whole time. She might have been here for a couple of weeks, based on insect activity I'd say the sixth and seventh weeks she was away. But outside that window of time, she wasn't there.'

Booth stared at him, not knowing whether this was a good or a bad thing. His gut was telling him it was bad. 'She was moved around, held in different locations.'

Hodgins looked apologetic. 'I'm sorry. I guess, the other places might have been better…'

Better than a pitch-black hole in the earth, tied up, starved, with rats and spiders and insects, being tortured by a psychopath. Just about anything would be better than that.

But what was really playing on Booth's mind now, were the missing pieces of this puzzle. It probably would be possible, eventually, to work out what had happened to Bones in those two weeks in the pit with Yoseph Kraus. They had soil samples and DNA and the metal torture kit and Kraus in custody.

Booth had seen Bones at the crowded mall escorted by Kraus _just before_ the two weeks she spent with him. _Right here in D.C._, he thought with venom. She had been out in the sunshine, as if Kraus were testing her out to see what she would do in a public setting. And the next day she was thrown into a pit.

Booth couldn't help think that Bones had responded _too well_ to being out. She wasn't as broken as Kraus was expecting. What happened to her in those final two weeks with Kraus must have been horrific, but what concerned Booth even more was the mystery of the five weeks preceding.

Broadsky had planned all along to return Brennan to Booth. If he hadn't, she would have just been killed. But Booth felt sure that if Bones had been ready, she would have been returned to him that day at the mall. The final two weeks were tacked onto the end to make sure the thing was done properly. It seemed like an afterthought.

Where did McCullough fit into this? Where was Broadsky? It seemed strange that they even thought about releasing her without physical and chemical torture, so the last two weeks were probably a repeat or continuation.

They had assumed she would be broken enough after five weeks. Five weeks he knew absolutely nothing about. What exactly happened to her?


	38. Chapter 38

Booth leaned back on the plastic hospital chair and looked again at the closed blinds in the window. The nurses must be removing a catheter or changing her clothes or something. He'd been sitting here for twenty minutes, having sped all the way over here when the hospital called to say Bones had woken up.

It was Sunday afternoon, and she'd been asleep for five days. Booth was just grateful that she didn't have to experience the full force of the drug, even though it would be a few days yet until it was completely out of her system. He'd got a lot of work done on the case this week, but only because he knew she was asleep. He wouldn't have left the hospital if she had been awake.

The door opened and two nurses came out, leaving the door open. 'Are you Booth? She's been asking for you,' one of them said.

'Yeah. Is she alright?'

'She needs some fresh air and sunshine, but she's doing well.'

'Thanks.' It had taken some self-control not to just burst into the room, but Booth waited until the nurses were walking away before knocking on the door jamb.

'Booth?'

Brennan's voice was a bit rough, and Booth walked straight in and hugged her.

'You okay?'

Brennan held him tight, sitting up in bed. 'I don't know, I… I saw things, and I don't think it was real, and I… I'm just scared.'

Booth knew this was a significant confession for her, and sat down on the bed beside her. 'There was a capsule full of PCP in your arm. It burst and you got the drug.'

Brennan looked like she wanted to cry, for the release it would give, but didn't have the tears. Booth hugged her tighter and rubbed her back. 'Your scars are a lot better,' he said into her hair, picking up her arm.

'Yeah,' she sniffed. She turned her face into his chest and took some deep breaths, and he let her stay there, measuring her breaths against his for a couple of minutes until she seemed to relax.

'You ready to go home? Watch that whale movie, get some pizza?'

Brennan didn't trust her voice not to crack so she nodded instead.

'Okay,' he said, still quietly into her hair. 'Let's get out of here. I've got some clothes for you.'

He gave Brennan a bag with a pair of loose yoga pants, a shirt and underwear. Brennan took it and climbed down onto the floor, catching his eye to say a non-verbal 'thank you', and went into the bathroom.

Booth went around to her bedside table. There was a bunch of yellow daisies and a small blue bunny that was 'from Michael'. He collected these and the clothes she'd worn here into a bag and waited as Bones got changed.

She was out quicker than he expected. _That's a good sign_, Booth thought. She still looked on the verge of breaking down so he held her hand tight as they went out to the SUV.

Brennan was looking better physically than a week ago. She squeezed his hand back with more strength than the last time, and she seemed somehow tougher, a little closer to her old self. It was only three weeks since he found her, but in spite of the latest dose of PCP the majority of the drugs had left her system.

Booth put the bags in the back and helped Brennan into the passenger seat. She was still shaky since she hadn't had the chance to build up her muscle mass again. Booth was happy that their work now included 'fitness regime' along with the damage control.

Brennan took his hand again when he got in. He smiled at her and squeezed her hand, but had to take it back to drive.

She had talked more in the last ten minutes than in practically all the time she'd been back. She seemed less shell-shocked, and Booth wondered whether this was a new direction or just a good day. Leaving hospital would probably lift anyone's spirits, and Brennan was softly smiling as she sat in the car. Her eyes sparkled a bit more. Booth found himself wondering how she would feel about moving things in their relationship forward, but forced the idea away. There were a lot of things to be taken care of first. Like finding and slowly killing the other two men who had tormented his partner.

Brennan angled her body towards Booth, which was probably most telling difference between Bones pre-abduction and Bones now. He could tell she was still very attached, and that her sense of security would rapidly deflate if he wasn't around. Maybe it was selfish, but he kind of liked that.

He pulled into the garage and parked, getting out with the bags and was only slightly beaten by Bones to get her door. He gave her an arm to support herself getting down and gave her a quick side-on hug and kiss to her temple. He locked the car and they went to the elevator.

'How long was I in hospital for?' Bones asked as the lift went up.

'Well you've been in twice. The first time you were in there for eight days, and this time for five days.'

'Really?'

'Yep.'

'It doesn't seem… I must have been asleep…'

'You were. You needed it,' Booth assured her. He debated telling her about the other drugs she'd been on and decided to answer her questions, but not volunteer upsetting details that she might have forgotten. Without good reason. There could be such a thing as _too much_ information. His first priority was for her to feel happy and safe.

The lift stopped at their floor and they walked into the hallway, Booth unlocking the front door. 'Here we go, how's it feel to be home?'

Brennan walked in, drinking in the place, the warmth and familiarity. 'Really good,' she said quietly. Booth smiled and grabbed the phone, bringing it over to the couch where he sat down and invited her over with a head tilt. Brennan sat down a little further away than Booth would have liked. He dialled the number and a few rings later they picked up. 'Ah yeah, can we get a half-and-half pizza, meatlovers and vegetarian? And a salad. Great, thanks.' Booth gave them his address and ended the call.

'You okay there Bones?' he asked. She looked nervous and fidgety, perched there on the sofa. 'C'mon, talk to me. What's up?'

She looked away. 'I… just, I saw stuff,' she said to the floor. 'I was drugged, I know but it seemed so real, I don't… This is real?' She looked at him and he saw the heartbreak in her eyes.

'Yeah, this is real,' he said, tugging her arm to get her to move closer. She shifted til she was sitting beside him, then he reached over putting her feet up on the couch and pulled her back to lay across his lap, her head cushioned on the arm rest, much the same way as he'd held her that first night in the SUV.

Brennan was still fighting tears as she looked up at him, hating herself for the weakness but also wanting to say it all out loud to Booth, so he could help her carry the weight. 'That night you took me to the crime scene, at the warehouse,' she said, lolling her head into the crook of his arm.

'Yeah,' Booth said, and waited for her to go on.

'I… it started in the car, I could feel it in my arm.'

'Yeah I know. You scratched at it and then it ruptured.'

Brennan closed her eyes, relishing this strange feeling of being able to trust, and not having to hide. She absently reached one hand up to Booth's arm and ran her fingers along it, mimicking the same soothing action he'd given her every day of the past weeks rubbing in bio-oil on her scars. 'I recognised it,' she said quietly.

'The warehouse?'

'Yes… no… I don't know. I recognised the briefcase.'

'I know you did. Did you see me?'

Brennan shuddered slightly, trying to repress the tears that seemed to be coming in spite of her. 'I saw… someone… it wasn't you. It was someone who… I'd seen…'

'From when you were held hostage.'

'Yeah. I guess you were there. Were you holding the briefcase?'

'I was. We were investigating the site and someone found the case.'

'It wasn't his main one,' Brennan said dazedly.

Booth smoothed the hair back from her face. 'You remembered something,' he said encouragingly.

Brennan squirmed a little at this. 'I only remembered because I hallucinated. I don't… I don't, I don't want to have to… hallucinate again. To remember. I just want it to be real.'

'Bones, no one is going to give you drugs to make you remember things. I won't let that happen. The doctors checked you very carefully for any other implants that we might have missed, okay, and you're going to be with me all the time, no one is going to get to you.'

Brennan nuzzled in a little closer. 'Thank you,' she said quietly. Booth could see the sparkle of a teardrop spill out the corner of her eye. He didn't have a tissue nearby so he just swiped the tears away with his thumb.

They sat there quietly for a while, just basking in the relief of being back home and intact, and together. By the time the pizza arrived Brennan had turned completely on her side with her nose buried in Booth's t-shirt. He sat her up, not too quickly and went to get the door, and paid the guy for the food.

'Okay, Bones, you hungry?' Booth asked two minutes later, bringing the pizza box over with two plates and two drinks balanced in his other hand.

Bones sat up and watched him unload it all onto the coffee table, then take a seat right beside her. She smiled that he insisted on sitting close, and leaned in against him while he took a few slices of pizza out for each of them.

'There you go, vege… annnd meatlovers.' _Pizza. There's no problem that can't be solved with pizza,_ he thought. He handed her the plate, catching her eye and grinning widely. Brennan couldn't help but let out a sort of short, silent laugh in response, and stared at the ground rather than at Booth, trying to process the change of emotions she was feeling. She took a few small bites, but in the same amount of time Booth had managed to eat two whole slices.

'That's not how you eat pizza, Bones,' Booth told her, seeing how little she'd got through. 'Here, this is how you eat pizza.' He shoved half a slice into his mouth, and grinned as he chewed it.

'I'm just eating slowly—' she said, holding up the slice in her hand to prove her point.

'Nah, you've gotta have the whole pizza experience, and that means getting a bite with more than one kind of topping into your mouth. Here—' He reached his arm around behind her, took the slice from her hand and guided it carefully into her mouth.

'Bo—ooth!' Brennan laughed as he pushed it into her mouth. She wasn't sure how she was going to swallow this, because she was laughing at the same time. She turned towards him and buried her face into his neck to escape his hand, which was now doing aeroplane moves in front of her as if he was feeding a toddler.

'What, don't you like the aeroplane? Parker used to _love_ this, I even got him to eat spinach—'

Brennan swallowed her mouthful and kept laughing at the aeroplane sounds, now imagining a tiny Parker in a high chair stubbornly keeping his mouth closed. She let out a squeal when he nudged the pizza against her cheek. 'Booth!'

'Ha ha, okay,' Booth grinned, putting the slice down on the plate and just returning Brennan's cuddle as she sat with her head leaned against his shoulder. He put the two plates back on the table and pulled Bones back down to lean across his lap again. She rolled over the way she had before the food arrived, her face hidden in his t-shirt, breathing him in and he smiled, just running his hands all over her arm and back.

Bones sighed happily at the feeling of being held and touched all over so Booth decided to step it up a notch. It had been too long since they'd had any fun. He slipped one hand underneath her arm and tickled.

'Boooth!' she squealed, squirming to try and get away. He laughed and found what he suspected to be a ticklish spot on her side. Bones was trying to laugh but was too breathless from squirming to make much of a sound. Booth smiled at the cute expression on her face, and then, not stopping to think about it, raised her upper body up with his knee so her face was right in front of him.

At first they just stared at each other, Brennan trying to catch her breath and feeling her head spin, Booth just taking in the sight of her, the way her lips parted and her eyes sparkled as she waited, as if she was suspended in time.

He knew he shouldn't. Not right now. But he couldn't help it. They had moments, the two of them sometimes when for just a little while, as long and as short as the space of a breath, the rest of the world didn't exist. For just that moment, nothing else mattered, and everything was perfect.

Booth first caught her eyes, big and bright, and then he couldn't look away from her lips. He was so fixated there that he missed the split-second flash of warning.

'Uh!' she gasped, shrinking back. Booth was completely unprepared for her to move and she tumbled with a crash onto the floor. She gasped again for more air and scrambled, with surprising quickness and strength as far from the couch as she could get, backing up against the wall. Rather than flee or fight, she just crouched down in a corner and tried to make herself as small and as quiet as possible. She was trying to hide.

Booth was still stunned. From the kiss they almost had and the… whatever in the world just happened.

'Bones!' he gaped. He shook himself out of his stupor and looked at her, cowering and trembling in the corner. '_Bones._'

She was still trying to disappear, her fear strong enough to practically smell. Booth went over and knelt down in front of her. She was experiencing something, or seeing something—she had to be. For a moment she had wanted that kiss. Then something had gone wrong.

Booth didn't know whether to touch her or not. He reached out a hand to lay on her shoulder but hesitated and withdrew it. _She just ran _away_ from me, she doesn't want to be touched_, he thought frenetically. What was he supposed to do? She wasn't with him right now. She wasn't safe in a warm house with someone who loved her, behind locked doors to keep evil out. She wasn't with him. _I've got to bring her back_.

'Bones.' Nothing. 'Temperance. Hey it's just me, it's just Booth. No one's going to touch you, no one's hurting you, Bones. You're safe. Do… you know where you are?' he asked, as if that was the right thing to say in this situation. He didn't know what the hell he was doing.

Brennan shuddered violently and started trembling more, taking big breaths than meant she was starting to hyperventilate. It was getting worse. He had to bring her back, now.

'_Bones._' He placed his palm firmly but gently on her shoulder and shook her a tiny bit, just enough to catch her attention. 'You're home, it's just me. Talk to me, Bones.'

Brennan finally raised her head. 'Booth?' she asked in a small voice, as if she had just woken up from a dream.

'Are you okay?' he asked. _Stupid question_. Of course she wasn't okay.

'Oh…' Brennan looked dazed.

'Can you tell me what happened, Bones? You saw something.'

She looked everywhere but his face, starting to calm down. Finally, she said, 'It wasn't you.'

'You saw someone else instead of me.'

She nodded, staring at the wall. 'I… it wasn't you. I don't… I can't…' she trailed off.

Booth could tell he wasn't going to get much more out of her. _I caused this_, he berated himself. _I started something, and she saw someone else… I made her afraid_.

'I'm okay now,' she said defensively, like she was trying to prove a point.

He felt all the worse because he knew that if she hadn't pulled away, he would have kissed her. Bones didn't know what she wanted. She thought she wanted him, but she clearly wasn't ready. Not if she was seeing someone else's face that filled her with fear when she got close to him.

Brennan was looking more with-it now, avoiding his eyes and blushing. It occurred to Booth that if he, or whoever it was that she had seen, had kissed her anyway her panic attack probably would have been a lot worse. They were lucky.

By now Booth had finally learned his lesson about pushing Bones into things. Sometimes she would act without thinking—running at a suspect, punching someone in the nose, unplugging a speaker to get his attention. But the bigger things, the things that really mattered, she was terrified of making a misstep, no matter how hard she tried to hide it. And added to that, she was traumatised. By something.

'I just didn't think, Bones, I just, you smelled so good…'

Bones still wasn't meeting his eyes. She recovered a little at this, to hear Booth reminding her what really happened. He could see her nod and whisper 'Okay.'

Booth decided it was time to get up. Move past this. He crouched and offered her a hand up. He stood and waited, letting her hold onto his arm until she was firm on her feet and not likely to fall over. That had actually happened several times in the last few weeks, her blood pressure too low to pump to her head if she stood up too fast.

'Do you want to go have a shower?' he asked her, now a step away, just holding her arm loosely in case she needed balance.

'Oh, no, I um, had one at the hospital,' Bones said, not quite meeting his eyes and tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

'Bones… are we okay?' he found himself asking. He knew he was supposed to be the one helping her, and that it was his fault, but he had to hear it from her.

'Yeah,' she said, looking up shyly in his eyes, then glancing away. 'We'll always be okay Booth.'

He smiled at her but didn't try to catch her eye. She needed to have a small barrier up right now. He'd stepped over the line. He had to respect that, let her gather herself again.

'Okay, I'm gonna have one then, do you want to put a movie on?'

Brennan shrugged. 'It's okay. I'll go put the dishes away.'

Booth wanted to tell her she didn't need to but her just said, 'Yeah, sure. Thanks.' They turned around and went in opposite directions. Booth couldn't stop mentally kicking himself, going straight to the bathroom and turning the water on cold.

When he came out ten minutes later Bones was curled up in bed wearing pyjamas, reading a book of world records she'd found on the bookshelf with just the lamp on.

'I'll um… I'll sleep out on the couch tonight,' he said awkwardly. He just felt it would be appropriate.

Bones looked up at him, eyes conflicted. 'No, Booth, please…' she said, her voice cracking. He frowned and stepped closer to hear her.

'Please don't… please stay in here,' she begged. Booth looked at her concernedly. Bones never begged for anything. She picked up the book and put it on the table beside the lamp, and Booth could see how much her arm was still trembling.

Maybe he had judged wrong. He thought that because she was more lucid, she would be more independent. But… being more aware was not the same as being less afraid. In fact, Booth thought, the clearer her head became, the more frightening things she was likely to remember.

'Bones,' he sighed, giving in and walking back over to his air mattress. She swiped at her eyes and laid back down facing away from him, her shoulder heaving slightly.

He was going to have to navigate this change, somehow. She clearly needed him as much as before, but still as her friend, as an anchor. He was going to have to somehow back off at the same time as keep her close. _This would be so much easier if she wasn't a girl _he thought.

'Bones, come lay over this side,' he said after a short silence. 'Give me your hand.'

She crawled closer and did as he asked, her swollen eyes just peeking out from beneath the sheet. Booth berated himself again for his stupidity, then forced the thought out of his mind. She needed his focus to be on her. 'Everything's going to be okay, Bones. Alright?'

'Yeah,' she said softly after a moment. 'I know.'

He squeezed her hand and ran his thumb over her knuckles, making eye contact again, holding it there until she her face softened, lulled into sleepiness with those brown eyes watching over her. 'Goodnight,' he said.

'Night,' she said quietly, and within a minute she had fallen asleep.


	39. Chapter 39

Booth woke early on Monday morning to find no Brennan in the bed beside him. It was neatly made, but the fact that she'd got up before him was odd. It hadn't happened so far since she'd been staying here, not even once. Booth went into the bathroom to splash water on his face before heading into the living room to find her.

Brennan was sitting at his little two-seater dinner table, her knees drawn up to her chest staring out the window. She glanced across when she heard him walk over, but quickly turned her gaze away again.

'How'd you sleep?' he asked, pulling the other chair out and sitting down.

Brennan glanced up furtively at him, shrugged and kept staring out the window. It was obvious she had something on her mind.

Booth watched her fight to keep her composure. She didn't look like she was going to cry. It seemed more like nervousness, or disconcertion.

'Bones. Hey,' he said gently. She met his eyes, obviously finding it difficult. Was this about last night? 'What's going on? You okay?'

Brennan was silent for a moment, still averting her eyes, and she started biting her lip. Booth leaned back a little, subconsciously giving her more space.

'I was tied up,' she said quietly.

Booth furrowed his brow. 'When you were away.'

Bones nodded, looking down and tucking her fringe behind her ear.

'Do you want to tell me about it?' he coaxed.

Brennan fidgeted nervously again, which made him even more concerned. So far she had been pretty open about everything, wanting to have him there as her support and backup. What would make her shrink away from that?

Bones sat staring at a smudge on the window pane for a minute. 'I was tied up to a cliff. I was in handcuffs.'

Oh. She remembered that.

'…You were there.'

Oh. _Oh._ Booth thought he knew where this was going. 'Bones…'

She rubbed her eye with one fist, with a slightly wild look in her eyes. She was getting panicked. 'Tell me what's wrong, Bones,' Booth said, trying to get her to focus on the facts, to give him something to work with.

'I don't... I don't know how long I was there, I couldn't see. It was really cold… something was in my mouth.'

Booth nodded slowly. 'Yeah,' he said. He waited for her to go on. The more she said the better. He wanted to let her get this out.

'I… I… it was cold, and the cliff, and the… my skin was really dirty, I h-had… nothing to keep me warm… and then you came.'

Bones was starting to stutter and Booth thought she'd appreciate directness. 'Is this because you were naked when I found you?'

She turned and stared out the window, or perhaps _at_ the window again, and this time Booth could see her eyes watering. This memory had come back to her without warning. She felt so lacking in control, and the helplessness terrified her.

'You don't need to worry about that. I found you. That's all that matters.

Brennan nodded but wouldn't meet his gaze. 'Yeah.'

'What else did you remember?'

'N..not much. Just… feelings, and not seeing, and the rock, the rock was so cold…'

She was thrown by an incomplete memory. Now that she'd remembered something, it was almost worse than remembering nothing. The memories raised far more questions than they answered, like the ambiguity of a campfire horror story. It only made the unknowns seem more frightening.

She needed to hear what had happened. Booth let out a long breath, wondering where to start, and how much to say. If he touched on a detail she had not remembered, it might cause her needless pain. But she had a right to know. And if given the choice, Booth would have her grapple with real things, definable and certain, that she could understand, process and move past, than battle insubstantial spectres and shadows.

'I found a trail going down the cliff, I walked along it and I found you,' he said gently, the scene coming back to him. 'I didn't let any of the guys come close. I called a female agent, cut the chains off your hands and feet, wrapped you in a blanket and carried you.'

Bones nodded shakily, not able to meet his eyes. She sniffed and swiped at her nose.

'I didn't look at you, Bones. I mean seeing is passive… looking is active,' Booth went on. He wasn't saying this because it was a big deal. It was only a big deal if you made it a big deal. He wanted her to know she could trust him, that he hadn't gone behind her back and taken advantage of the situation. 'I knew you wouldn't have wanted me to. I wouldn't betray your trust like that.'

'Oh.' At that explanation, the tenderness in his voice, she found her eyes fill and a couple of tears fall. She wasn't sure that it even mattered. She suddenly needed him to know that despite the fear those blurred memories had caused her, that it wasn't because of _him,_ that it wasn't that she wanted to hide from him.

'I _did_ want… you to, one day, to, I mean …I wanted…'

Brennan couldn't get her words out Booth got what she was trying to say. He reached across the little table it and brushed the tears off her cheek with the back of his fingers. 'Hey, it's okay. I know.'

'Yeah,' sniffed Brennan, suddenly overwhelmed by this conversation. She swiped at her nose and turned in on herself a little.

It was obvious this was getting too much for her and she was shutting down. She'd reached her d&m limit for thismorning.

'So,' he said quickly, clapping his hands and changing his tone. 'It's Monday and I'm not going in to work, so we should celebrate by watching a movie. What do you feel like? We've got—hang on—' he reached behind him and grabbed a stack of movies. '…Indiana Jones, Lord of the Rings, uh, and Spongebob. That's Parker's. But we can make pancakes, and you can have any topping you like.'

He used his charm smile and Brennan smiled back. 'I think I want to watch Spongebob.'

Booth chuckled and handed her the dvd case. 'I'll go do the pancakes, be ten minutes. Do you want lemon and sugar, maple syrup, chocolate topping or fruit?'

'Oh, uh… fruit,' she said, feeling slightly dazed now by the intensity of the morning.

'Sure thing. You start without me.'

They got up, Booth grabbing a shake-n-mix pancake bottle and adding the water. Brennan wandered over to the tv, opened the case and slid the movie into the machine, using Booth's absence to grab a tissue and blow her nose without him seeing her. She was still a little flushed when he returned, but he pretended not to notice, cheerfully flinging an arm over her shoulders and singing the Spongebob song extremely off-key. After a minute Brennan was smiling and cuddling into his side, asking questions about the cartoon.

'Why is there a pineapple?'

'Oh you know, kids, they like crazy, random funny stuff, that doesn't make any sense… I mean sponges float, and those krabbie-pattie burger-buns would get all soggy, but it doesn't matter, cos it's a cartoon.'

'It is quite amusing. And there's… no real reason for them to drive cars, when they could just use a pressurised air or water-tank to move through the sea much faster.'

'Like a jet pack.'

'Yes.'

'Also, Spongebob has really funny pants. It's like his shirt and his pants are all the one thing. Who would wear something like that?'

For some reason, Brennan seemed to find this inordinately funny. 'I… I think Spongebob would. Of course.'

He could feel her shaking with laughter and pulled her in closer. Watching this had been a good idea. 'What about me, do you think I could pull that off?'

'If you were wearing that it would be a very good idea to pull that off- oh- I mean-'

She suddenly realised how that sounded and went very still. She wasn't acting like herself- it wasn't at all like her to be self-conscious. But Booth wasn't about to let her freak out again, so he pretended not to have noticed.

'I'd have to go for one of those fish-bowl heads then, too, and everything would look all curved.'

'Through the glass,' Brennan rallied. 'Because it would distort things.'

'I know, right? Hey.' He caught her eye. Whatever was going on, she needed to believe they would hold. 'We're going to be okay, you know that?'

Brennan took a breath. 'Yeah. I know.'

He held her gaze for a moment longer, feeling her relax again and lay her head on his shoulder. He decided to show her they could cuddle and bicker at the same time, so he went on, 'Good, cos whoever finishes their pancakes last is on dishes, and I think that's gonna be you.'

'What? I'm not going to have an eating contest with you! Do you know how much sugar is in pancakes? It's very unhealthy, you should really eat it with fruit-'

'Ha, nope, you're just trying to get out of it, you'll have to better than that…'


	40. Chapter 40

**A/N okay I just saw the baby episode… those last two scenes? I'm still crying dude….. and now…. Yea…. Still cryin'. Dammit with the sweetness. **

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Booth was staring blankly at his computer screen, supposedly working but trying to figure out… he didn't really know what he was trying to figure out. Just _her_. Everything. There was just something up with Bones, the conversations they'd had today and last night. She was never self-conscious, hardly ever awkward. Not about sex and not about him. Although, he reasoned, for the majority of their partnership she'd been very flighty about sex _with_ him, and would waver back and forth, keeping a strong tension between yes and no, love and fear.

There was something intangible there with them—it was never going to be 'just'. Bones knew it too, that night on their first case when she got in that taxi. She didn't change her mind because she'd been drinking. She backed away because she couldn't compartmentalise him, even though she tried.

She had shown this over those four days, years ago, when he had slept in a hospital bed and Bones had written him a story about burdens that allow us to fly. It had all come from her. He hadn't said a word, but he woke up knowing he loved her.

Bones realised he would be in her heart, and she didn't want to love anyone. He was the whole package. As much as she wanted it, she didn't want to take the risk. Bones had always been scared.

Always, that is, until very recently, that one rainy night in the SUV. But since he'd rescued her from Broadsky, she'd had trouble thinking and remembering. She'd forgotten so much, at least those seven weeks. Had she forgotten part of _their_ history, too?

He glanced across at her, watching another episode of Spongebob. He didn't know why she liked the cartoon—it was silly, and frivolous, and made no pretence of being realistic. Yet she'd been sitting there happily for almost two hours. It was good, really—after their rather awkward night and even awkward-er morning, she was just letting her mind empty and relax. Probably as good as meditation. He didn't like the thought of her sitting over there stewing.

His phone rang, snapping him out of his Brennan-watching and back to the fact that he was supposed to be working. 'Booth.'

'Booth! hey,' came Hodgins' voice. 'Um, you might want to come over here, we've found a possible location.'

'Really? You think you found Broadsky? How—'

'I went over to the warehouse yesterday, you know how I like to double-check things myself and I found the empty plastic casing for a key-card. I was able to reverse-manufacture the imprint from the gold chip and run it through Angela's database, and it's come up a match for a docking bay, the area they load containers on and off ships—'

'Great! Oh- would this be Broadsky's or Kraus'?'

'We won't know until we get there but either way, right? I'm going with Angela, she can stay with Brennan if you bring her plus she's got good spatial awareness.'

'Like me. This is where snipers and artists collide.'

'I'll text you the address, we'll be there in half an hour.'

They hung up and Booth closed down his laptop. He'd been kidding himself about getting any work done anyway.

Brennan was still under the spell of Spongebob, and she didn't hear him until he was sitting on the arm of the sofa beside her. 'Hey, we've got another crime scene. You up for a field trip?' he asked.

'I uh… this crime scene… is it, uh… I don't want to sit in the car,' she said nervously. 'Like last time.'

'Oh, no, hey, Angela's coming, and she can sit with you the whole time, you won't be on your own. In fact I might bring another agent for security,' he thought aloud. It wouldn't hurt to have an extra pair of eyes looking out for Bones.

Brennan nodded and got up, slightly shakily, and went into the bedroom to get dressed. Booth noticed she was holding back slightly from him, like she had last night. He knew why, obviously but he didn't know what to do about it, and honestly he didn't want to think about it. Taking care of Brennan was a significant undertaking, he thought to himself, chuckling as he got together his gun, holster, wallet and keys. He had to be careful not to drive himself crazy— they were always going to have a certain amount of conflict and clashing. The love, trust and respect underneath that more than compensated, but still. He was happy to give her the space she needed today. He'd use the time to do the same.

She came out a few minutes later in straight-leg jeans and a pretty maroon top. She'd brushed her hair and put on flat shoes. Booth smiled at her, proud of the progress she'd made. She'd decided on that outfit herself.

'You ready to go?'

She nodded, and after hesitating for just a second, came over and possessively took his arm. Booth smiled and landed a kiss on her forehead, before heading out with her to the car.

Brennan was angled towards him in the car as he drove, which he took as another good sign. She was struggling with new memories and old boundaries, but was still attached to him at the hip. Booth couldn't help but feel just slightly smug. Then he felt bad for being smug, but it _was_ ego-boosting to be the one person she continually returned to and latched onto. Brennan didn't latch. He was always her one exception.

The drive was pretty silent—Booth asked at one point if she wanted to grab lunch at a drive-thru but she declined politely. He told her to look out for the ocean, a game he sometimes played with Parker—who could see the sea first. She watched out for it quite happily. She seemed happier when she had something to focus on he noticed—a job or activity to do.

Booth groaned inwardly at himself. He was becoming like Sweets or even a squint—looking for patterns, identifying positive and negative factors, trying to guess how she'd respond. At least it gave him something to do. If he just sat all day with her and had no plan, even a dumb plan of how to help her, he might just go mad with the pain of seeing her loss.

'I think I can see it,' he said as they turned a corner. Brennan sat up taller looking, and as they came up to an intersection they both said 'I see it!' at the same time. Brennan found this amusing and kept smiling for the rest of the drive.

'There's Hodgins,' Booth pointed out as they drove into the car park. He and Angela were getting out their equipment, and the extra agent Booth had requested was waiting leaned up against the tall wire fence. Booth killed the engine and hopped out, letting Bones close her own door and come round to meet him. She looked okay about this, and Booth thought this might be a good time to see if she coped being with someone else for a while. If she couldn't manage he was right there.

'Booth,' Hodgins called, holding up a reverse-engineered image courtesy of the Angelatron. Booth took it. 'So we've just gotta ask these guys if they recognise the three mugshots.'

Hodgins nodded enthusiastically and Booth turned to Brennan and Angela, now standing side-by-side with an arm around each other's back. Brennan looked okay. 'Bones just stick by Angela, Agent James over there will be covering you so there shouldn't be any problems. Call my cell if you need me, okay?'

'Okay,' Brennan agreed quietly. She still seemed to be battling to decide what she wanted- to be stuck to Booth's side at all times or to be closed-down and independent. It sort of came with the territory that when you lived with someone, them seeing you unguarded. She wondered what would happen if she wasn't staying at Booth's.

Booth and Hodgins got to work canvassing the area, starting by talking to the guards and asking about photos and aliases. Angela picked a spot inside the gated area where they had good view of their surroundings, and the agent found a good vantage point and tried to look menacing, twirling his gun.

'So Jacob Broadsky, Yoseph Kraus or Victor McCullough,' Booth said, handing the guards the three photos. 'Any of those look familiar?'

'This one,' said one of the guards, pointing at Broadsky's shot, 'but his name was Brian, last name Fisher or Forster or something like that.

'How often did he come here, when did you last see him?' Booth pressed. Hodgins wandered away a little, examining the paint on the shipping containers.

'Oh he was a contract worker, he was here for about five months, just doing four days a week I think. It was a pretty sweet deal really, no job security though,' the guard said.

'Did he have an office, an address, any paperwork?'

'Probably, we keep that stuff on file at head office. I'll give you the number, it might take them a couple of days to get hold of it.'

'And you never saw these other two?'

'Nah. Brian had an assistant a few times, he wasn't on the payroll, just some work experience kid.'

'Do you have his name, a photo, description?'

'Um hang on.' The guard went to the back of the gate office and came back with a roll of old-fashioned security feed. 'This is the old one from last year, if he came in through the gates he'll be on here.'

Booth accepted the tape and then he and Hodgins started looking around the lot, Hodgins taking samples of paint and dust to put on file back at the lab. Booth checked out the layout. This would be a fantastic place to have a shoot-out. There were high stacks of crates you could climb, giving you an exceptional view of the lot. The containers were laid out in neat rows with little lanes in between, and the concrete underfoot was covered in grit and sand.

`I want to know about this young guy,' Hodgins said as they finished searching the place. 'Any kid who was with Broadsky isn't coming here for work experience.'

'Maybe not as a dock worker,' said Booth darkly. 'This is a perfect training location for a sniper. If a kid was here, he'd be getting experience in _something_.'

Booth and Hodgins headed back to the cars, Angela and Brennan coming out after them.

'What have we got?' Ange asked, Brennan walking close behind her and unable to take her eyes off Booth.

'Broadsky worked here for a while. We're getting files from the head office, and this is for you,' Booth said, handing her the video footage.

'Great, I'll get right onto this,' Ange smiled.

'We're looking for a potential fourth player, a work-experience kid with Broadsky,' Hodgins filled her in.

Booth could see Brennan looking like she desperately wanted to come over to him but didn't want to do so in front of Hodgins and Angela.

'Hey I'll uh, I'll come round to the lab tomorrow once I've got the paperwork from the dock office,' he told Hodgins and Ange. 'I'll see you both then,' he added, holding out a hand to Brennan. She quickly took it and followed close behind him to the SUV.

Hodgins stared after them. 'You think she's going to be okay?' he asked Angela. Ange didn't really reply, she didn't know what to say so she just shrugged. 'I'm just glad she's got Booth,' she said. 'C'mon let's go.'

Booth helped Brennan into the passenger seat, since she looked considerably shakier than thismorning. He was a bit concerned. Had Brennan recognised this place? He was still not sure that bringing Bones to crime scenes was a good idea. Yes she wanted to be close to him, but she was getting close to a lot of unpleasant things in the process. And keeping her near wasn't the same as giving his full attention, or having her in his sight for the whole time. From now on perhaps he should just start leaving her at the lab.

Brennan was definitely looking flighty. She was unnerved. 'Bones,' Booth said, careful to modulate his voice. 'Are you okay, did something back there upset you? Because if you're remembering things or recognising things this might be a bad idea.'

Brennan shook her head but didn't say anything, which was a bit of an ambiguous answer, but her hands and arms had started shaking so Booth decided to just focus on getting her home. This discussion could wait.

He reached a hand across and tightly gripped hers so she would squeeze back, giving her something simple and tactile to focus on instead of whatever demons were in her head.

Twenty minutes later they pulled into Booth's parking lot and Booth realised he was starving.

'Hey how about we order some Thai for dinner?' he suggested, coming round and helping Brennan down. She looked pale. 'Do you want to go lie down Bones?' he asked.

She gripped his arm to support herself and nodded. 'Okay, let's get inside.'

They took the elevator and Booth unlocked the door letting them in. Brennan went straight for the bathroom and Booth headed into his room to get her some clean clothes, dumping the case files on the bed. He suddenly thought heard a retching sound from the bathroom and realised she must be throwing up.

'Bones?' he asked concernedly. She hadn't _eaten_ anything to throw up. There was no response and since the door was unlocked, he carefully opened it, not wanting to scare her. She was hunched over the toilet, gasping for breath and coughing.

'Whoa, Bones, here hang on—' He grabbed a washcloth and ran it under cold water, then knelt down beside her and gave it to her. Her hands were as shaky as ever and she tried to wipe her mouth and face with it.

This hadn't happened before, Booth didn't know what was going on. Maybe he should call someone. 'Let's get you into bed Bones. You okay to stand up?'

She didn't move, her head still bent low, trying to breathe through the nausea. Booth stayed there and rubbed her back for a few minutes, not forcing her to make any movements until she was ready. Eventually she sat up a little and tried to stand up.

'Oh, okay Bones here, let me help you up—' he slid his hands under her arms and lifted, noticing again that she weighed a lot less than she should. She looked so spaced out he decided to just pick her up and put her in bed. He scooped her up and laid her on top of the bedcovers, and she rolled out of his arms onto her side and curled up. 'I'm gonna get you some water and maybe I've got something for nausea,' Booth told her, though she didn't respond but continued taking long measured breaths. He went out to the kitchen and got out his medicine case and started looking through it to see if he had anything that would help. There were the sedatives the hospital had prescribed for Brennan, he hadn't had to use those yet; the antibiotics, and half a dozen nearly-empty bottles of various old prescriptions or cough medicine. Nothing for nausea. He put everything back in the cupboard, which was near the ceiling to be out of Parker's reach when he was younger.

He filled a glass with water and took it back to the bedroom. Then he saw one of the scariest things he could imagine. Brennan was convulsing.

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**A/N …. Still crying…**


	41. Chapter 41

**A/N Just putting a note here, in case it comes up, what Brennan experiences here is a non-epileptic seizure. They are a bit different, just didn't want anyone to be offended and think I was being disrespectful of what actually happens with epilepsy. I don't know all the medical stuff behind it but this chapter is entirely based on personal experience of a psychogenic seizure. Anyhoo, hope you like the chapter! :o)**

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Booth dropped the glass and ran straight over. Bones was lying on her back, every muscle in her body spasming, as if she was being pounded by a jackhammer. Her eyes were open, staring straight ahead, and all around her were the spilled pages of the Broadsky case file Booth had left on the bed.

Booth carefully sat down beside her, part of him wanting to panic, trying to remember what to do. His first instinct was to hold her still to try and stop the seizure, but he knew that was definitely the wrong thing to do. He looked around where she was lying. There was nothing sharp or hard that she could bang against and risk an injury. He carefully slid his hands underneath her and stretched her out so she was lying straight instead of curled up in a ball.

The shaking came in small continuous movements, like an earthquake zoomed out and sped up. Her head lolled over to one side, being jerked around by the muscles in her neck. Booth put a hand on her forehead, stroking the hair out of her eyes, and just talked to her, telling her it was going to be okay, hardly knowing himself what he was saying.

'Booth…'

She _was_ conscious. Booth hadn't been sure. Her voice was jerky and cracked, and she probably needed to drink some water. The most distressing thing was probably her breathing, which was coming in short jerking gasps, and her throat made little involuntary whimpers as she tried to breathe in the midst of all the shaking.

'It's okay Bones, I'm right here.' Not that he felt he was that much help. He wasn't sure Bones was aware enough that she could feel comforted by his being there. She was almost beyond registering anything beyond the movements of her own body.

Booth glanced at the clock. It was five-thirty. She could have been seizing for anything up to five minutes. He took her hand and squeezed. Even through the shaking he could feel her squeeze back.

'Booth,' she said again, her eyes moving to find his.

'Hey,' Booth replied, feeling his eyes becoming hot and full. 'Does it hurt?'

'Ah… no,' she said quietly between gasps, staring up at the ceiling again. Her field of vision kept changing as her head moved, and she was too dizzy to try and focus her eyes.

'Okay, that's good, that's really good,' he rambled. 'Bones…'

Her head lolled to the side again and now the jerks were coming in grosser movements.

'Bones,' he said brokenly. Could she even hear him?

_The tablets_, he suddenly thought. In the hospital the nurse had given her two tablets. He'd had the prescription made up.

Running into the kitchen, jumping over the mess of smashed glass he'd dropped Booth grabbed the medicine box again out of the cupboard. He slammed it on the counter and started rooting through it for the blue-and-white striped box. He carefully read the label. Yep, that was the right one. He popped out two pills and filled another glass with water, then carried them in to Brennan.

She was jerking a little less violently, and Booth just hoped she'd be able to swallow. He sat carefully beside her and slid his hand under her head. With his hold her head seemed to move slightly less.

'Bones, hey, sit up, I've got some tablets for you to take, okay?'

She blinked rapidly five or six times, then looked up at him, her eyes seeming to move as they stayed trained on him while the rest of her head shook.

'Bones, I need you to sit up a bit, okay?'

'Oh….. kay,' she gasped, and her eyes made an involuntary flick right and left. 'My… my head is zinging.'

'Zinging,' Booth repeated, just happy she was able to talk, even if he had no idea what about. Him not understanding her wasn't so unusual for them, although it tended to be more complex scientific stuff.

'It…. I… I felt it go zing,' she said, moving her shaking elbows back and trying to push herself up.

'Okay,' Booth said, moving closer and putting one bent leg where her head had just been so he could bear her weight while she swallowed the tablets. He held them up for her to see then slipped them carefully into her mouth.

Brennan seemed to trust him now, unlike the first night when she refused antibiotics. He held the glass to her lips and after a few moments she took a sip and slumped back against his leg.

'That's it,' Booth said, watching her throat move as she swallowed. He lifted her up a little, moved his leg away and laid her back down. As soon as she touched the pillow she whimpered '_Booth._'

'Yeah, you're okay, I'm right here,' Booth said, not knowing if it would help to say stuff like that but what else could he do?

Her arm jerkily moved towards him, as if she was trying to grab hold of him. He quickly took her hand and she gripped tight. 'I don't….. I…..'

Booth waited as she took deeper breaths, hoping she wasn't going to hyperventilate. If that was even possible in a seizure.

'I… I don't know _why_,' she managed to say. Every word was taking as long to get out as a whole sentence, punctuated by gasps. 'My head… it feels….. I, I can't…..'

'You're okay,' Booth said, feeling very strongly that she wasn't, but the sedatives had to start working soon and then she could fall asleep. And tomorrow she was going to a doctor.

'My head hurts,' she said sleepily a few minutes later. 'And it's yellow... It, it's… it's too yellow.'

'Yeah,' Booth said, continuing to stroke her hair. She was getting quieter and becoming more still, it had been about twenty minutes since the seizure started but the sedatives were pretty quick-acting. Her eyelids fluttered a bit and slowly drifted shut. Booth could see her breaths become slower, her chest rising and falling gently. She was almost out of it.

Her arms, legs and head gave an occasional twitch, but apart from that she seemed peaceful. When he was sure she was asleep Booth went to get a broom and cleaned up the smashed glass from the floor, carefully checking for any shards he had missed and sopping up the water with paper towels. He shook the broom over the bin to remove any glass that was caught in the bristles then gave the floor a second sweep. Brennan had had enough glass embedded in her feet for one week, and if Booth got some he wouldn't be able to chase and kill the people responsible.

When he was satisfied the floor was safe to walk on he started picking up all the papers from the file scattered on the floor and the bed. He had barely glanced at them since he was so focussed on Bones.

_She must have been reading the file._ _It was probably dumb of me to have left it there_, Booth thought, _I mean she doesn't need to be reminded of all that stuff, not from a file._ He went around to the empty side of the bed and sat down, gathering the rest of the pages and putting them into the folder. The last piece of paper he found, Brennan was half-lying on top of it and the corner was scrunched up as if she had grasped it awkwardly in her fist.

It was a full-page photograph of Victor McCullough.


	42. Chapter 42

McCullough. That was the picture she'd singled out.

Booth stared at the photograph. It was just a mugshot, but it was obvious that when this was taken, McCullough had no fear. Or any guilt. His face was contorted into an egotistical grin, and Booth felt kind of chilled by those pale eyes staring out of the page. This guy could probably hypnotise you, just by staring. And he was the kind of guy who put every bit of his twisted psycho knowledge and mastery to work.

He would have to be in his seventies, his white hair and the chiselled wrinkles on his face giving him an air of distinguished narcissism. His eyes though… they were freaking scary. Booth was certain that seeing this photograph had triggered Brennan's seizure.

She was sleeping soundly now, and Booth put down the photo and sat brushing the fringe off her face and then running his fingers over the healing scars on her arm. He'd rather sit here and look at her than at the creepy psychopath.

After a while of just watching her sleep, settled in the relief that she was okay, Booth went out to the living room and worked on his laptop, picking a spot to sit where he could see into the bedroom. He left the lamp on for her in case she woke up, which she might since it was a fast-acting sedative with a short half-life. It was only six-thirty. Booth wrote a few emails and flipped on the tv at a low volume to watch the news, quietly. He didn't hugely care what was happening in the world beyond his own sphere right at the moment, but hearing news, facts, or at least close to facts was kind of soothing. Brennan would probably have a lot to say on the pitfalls of biased journalism or the marginalisation of different cultural groups, he could picture her there lecturing about some tribe in the Amazon or the importance of organic vegetables. Even though she was sleeping right now it made him smile to picture it.

Booth realised he was still starving so he ordered some Thai over the phone, picking out a few dishes that Bones liked so she could eat later. By the time the food arrived and Booth had eaten it was eight thirty and Brennan was beginning to stir.

He put the rest of the food away in the fridge and went in to see if she was awake. She blinked her eyes a few times and brought up a still shaky hand to rub them as Booth sat down beside her.

'Hey Bones, how are you feeling?'

She put her arm down and looked up at him. She just looked fragile and Booth suddenly felt relieved that she was _here_, not hiding alone at her apartment, cut off from him and anyone who might help her. 'Um, okay,' she said, almost inaudibly. She seemed to want to get up so Booth moved out of her way.

She swung her legs halfway off the bed and stopped. 'Oh.'

'You right?' Booth asked. If Brennan hadn't been feeling so sick she probably would have told him he was being overprotective. But the thought didn't cross her mind. She was now staring at a wet patch on the bed.

Booth followed her gaze and saw the pale-yellow soaked area she was looking at. But this must have been the last straw for Bones. Yet another thing gone wrong. And in front of someone. She started pulling the sheet up to cover it, then decided it was useless and dropped it. Trying to keep it together just wasn't working, and she crumbled.

Booth saw in her eyes the change from tiredness and vulnerability to despair. 'Bones. Hey—' He watched her closely as she hung her head. 'Bones. It wasn't your fault.' Booth reached out and put a hand on her shoulder, watching her briefly clench her fist in frustration. After her seizure though, she was too exhausted to distance herself from this and release her emotions in a less confronting way by getting angry. They were just going to spill out of her at the seams.

She gasped sharply. 'I just—Booth I can't control anything, things just happen, I can't—I can't—'

She dissolved into hitching sobs. Booth grabbed her and plastered her against his chest. 'Bones you just had a seizure. You lost control of all your muscles; there was nothing you could do about it.'

'I… I wrecked your mattress,' she managed to say.

'I don't care about the mattress Bones. It's going to be alright, okay? Things aren't always going to be like this. I promise. And even if they are? I'm not going anywhere. You're gonna be stuck with me so you might as well get used to it.'

Bones stayed still, focussing on Booth's breaths to copy their length and frequency, trying to stop the tears. 'Thank you,' she said simply.

'Yeah well, it's just what you do for the people you love. And I love you, so much, Bones. More than anything.'

Booth didn't know why he chose here, right now as the time to tell her that. It wasn't the way he thought he would first say it to her— but here, holding a seizure-shocked Brennan on a urine soaked mattress, it was just so ridiculous that it was absolutely perfect.

'I… I love you too,' she whispered back in his ear.

'Yeah I know.' Booth pulled her in a little tighter, communicating via touch that he was sincere. It seemed to be working- her tears and hitched breaths were subsiding. He kept her there until she had stilled and was breathing normally.

'I don't want you to feel like you have to hide from me,' Booth told her.

'But I do,' Brennan admitted. She wasn't censoring her thoughts, and she wasn't thinking about what she was saying all that clearly. But somehow, talking to Booth wasn't just about thinking. With Booth you could talk from your gut and your heart, as well as from your head.

'You and me, Bones, we're family, okay? And in your family, it's okay to be exactly the way you are. You don't need to be embarrassed or hide in your family, you just get to be you. No one's going to up and leave you in the morning.'

'My, uh, my real family did,' Brennan whispered. As though saying it out loud would make it too real.

'Mine did too,' said Booth, thinking of something Gordon Gordon had told him. 'But Bones, often the best families in life? They aren't just about who your parents are. Family is about the people you _choose_ to love.'

Brennan had leaned back a little to see him as he said this. Sometimes Booth would come out and say things that sounded so strange to her, but then somehow, even without hard evidence, they turned out to be true.

Booth cupped the side of her face and leaned in, putting a chaste kiss on the corner of her mouth. 'We're really a family?' she asked hesitantly. The tone in her voice betrayed how much she wanted that to be true,

'You and me, always. If anything happened to me, the first person I would call is you. And I know you're the same.'

Brennan smiled a little. It was so ridiculous, but the love and security in thinking about this relaxed her. 'I think I like that,' she said. She stayed there a couple more minutes, relishing the freedom he was offering her, to just be what she was and not have to apologise. She thought of Booth being her family. She found it scary and liberating at once—the risk of humiliation and rejection, the freedom of living without pretence and the promise of love that didn't have to be earned.

Booth was ready to get organised for the night. Bones was beginning to succumb to sleep again, the exhaustion after her seizure creeping up on her.

'Okay Bones, let's get you into a hot shower, then you can go to sleep, you're exhausted.'

'I—the mattress—'

'We'll fix it tomorrow, you can sleep with me. The airbed's pretty good.'

A day or two ago he would not have offered this, and Bones wouldn't have accepted. But after what had happened tonight, they both felt there was a different kind of connection formed, a subtle shift. With the events of tonight, full of things bigger and broader than what they could control, in some strange way this night had become sacred. Neither one of them was thinking about sex and attraction right now, but were thinking instead of the harbour, the safe place they could be to each other in the midst of _sturm und drang_. There was something bigger in Booth's offer, and the step Brennan had taken in accepting it. This connection went a little deeper, and under its protection Brennan could have happily slept on the couch alone. But she also wanted the closeness and reassurance of being beside Booth. The reminder of the promise he had made her. She wanted to sleep beside him almost symbolically to solidify that promise. They were going to hold.

She blearily went into the bathroom and stripped off the dirty clothes, stepping into the shower and letting the steam fog up the room. She put on a towel and ducked back out to grab clean clothes. Forward-thinking wasn't really happening today.

Booth tossed the sheets in the laundry. He didn't know what to do about the bed, he'd probably get someone to come round and clean it professionally but he didn't want Bones to be around when it happened, she would rather forget and he didn't want to unintentionally rub it in.

He'd call someone round tomorrow and while they were cleaning he'd take Brennan out. He wanted to get her checked over, and then there was something he'd been wanting to do with her for a while.

Brennan came out towelling her hair dry. 'I'm gonna have a quick shower, I got a pillow for you,' Booth told her, gesturing to the air mattress. She shyly nodded and went and climbed in. Booth stole a glance of her curling up under the sheets before he went into the bathroom.

Ten minutes later Bones was asleep. She'd had a few hours sleep initially from the sedative, but the seizure itself had used up a huge amount of her energy. Booth turned off the main light, leaving one lamp on and climbed in beside her. The airbed was pretty comfortable, but Booth carefully rolled Bones over so her head was pillowed on his shoulder. He didn't know if she noticed, or if she thought she was dreaming it, but he kept his hold on her until the early hours of the morning.


	43. Chapter 43

CH 43

'Bones. Hey sleepy-head. Wake up.'

Brennan stirred, wriggling to stretch out her muscles, and blinked her eyes open to see Booth smiling down at her. 'Hi,' she said drowsily. 'What time is it?'

'It's eight thirty, you slept in,' he said, throwing in a charm smile for good measure. Brennan smiled back. 'But you've got to get up—I'm taking you to the doctor and then I've got a surprise for you.' She pushed herself up onto her elbows and sat up.

'I'll go make you some toast, do you want peanut butter or margarine?'

'Um, peanut butter,' Bones said quietly. She felt self-conscious, waking up where he'd been all night. She hadn't actually seen him, as she'd fallen asleep before he got there and then he'd woken up before her. But she felt safe with his gaze on her, and instead of hiding she wanted to luxuriate in it.

He got up to make breakfast and she found her duffle bag and picked out a dress and coat. It occurred to her that Booth had been washing her clothes for her. She'd been too out of it to register things like that. She suddenly wanted to go and thank him, or just to hug him for a while, but instead she went into the bathroom and got dressed for the day.

'Here you go Bones, PB toast and orange juice,' he said when she came out.

'Thank you,' Bones said, looking emotional. He'd done so much for her, given her so much time and he didn't treat it like a burden at all. She was so grateful that she was overcome by it. He was so good, and she felt like she didn't deserve him.

'Hey, it's just toast,' Booth said, seeing the emotions play out on her face.

'I… it's, not just for the toast,' she said, looking down. 'I mean, thank you, for everything.'

'Sure, Bones, it's okay,' Booth said. This side of her, the side that not many people got to see was why Booth had always said she had a big heart. Bigger than a lot of people's. She sniffed and got stuck into her toast, focusing on getting the slices in her mouth to distract her from the rush of gratitude that was threatening to make her cry. _Stupid emotions, _she thought, trying to metaphorically bat them off.

Booth sat down opposite her with a bowl of muesli, which he polished off in record time, and sculled his glass of juice. She finished a little after him, and took her plate over to the dishwasher, and they stood side by side cleaning up. Now that she was feeling a little better, she wanted to contribute as much as she could. It was her independent streak coming out. Booth smiled happily— not because she was cleaning, but because she was able to.

'Okay,' Booth said when they were finished. 'You ready to go?'

'Yes.'

'Great. To the SUV!' Booth said, holding out his arm for her to take. He felt quite old-fashioned when he did this, but he liked the way Brennan held onto him and how close she kept to his side, staying just slightly behind him. She found herself smiling a little as they took the lift down to the carpark. Being around Booth just made her happy.

An hour later they were finished at the GP. Booth went in with her because there was nothing too private she needed checked out, and he needed to know what was happening so he could take care of her. The doctor confirmed the seizure wasn't epilepsy, and said that Booth had handled it pretty well.

He also told Brennan she was probably out of the woods in terms of getting an infection. It would have happened by now, so there was no need to take the course of antibiotics. Booth could take the pills back to the pharmacy to be disposed of correctly.

As they walked back out to the car, Brennan's curiosity got the better of her. 'So are you going to tell me where we're going?' she said as she climbed into the car. Booth didn't help her in, she was trying to do it herself but he stood nearby in case she fell. _Fitness regime_, he reminded himself. _And protein._ _Once she's stopped the shaking_.

'Nope,' he replied, climbing in himself. 'It's a surprise. You'll find out when we get there. I'm pretty sure you'll like it.'

'Am I… am I dressed appropriately?'

'Sure. You look great.' He caught her eye, still smiling, and she blushed and looked down. This cute shy side of Brennan was something Booth hadn't seen before. Of course Bones wasn't a woman who routinely fell in love.

Booth drove the same route as last time. When he got to car park, the same agent as last time was there to pick them up. Brennan looked confused and a little nervous at the extra security measures, but she didn't freak out, simply trusting that Booth knew what he was doing. It felt pretty great to just be able to trust someone and not worry about things yourself. It was something Bones hadn't experienced since before her parents left.

'Will you tell me where we're going now?' she asked as they sat together in the back seat.

'Nope,' Booth said happily. Brennan squinted at the obvious look of happiness on his face. It was infectious. She couldn't help but smile back in spite of the mystery of where they were going.

'Here we are,' said the agent driving the car as they pulled up at a nondescript brick building. They all got out of the car and the agent entered a code into a computerised alarm system, unlocking the door. Booth went first and Brennan followed, the other agent staying outside and locking the door behind them.

They went through a hallway into a room that looked like an office, where two more agents were working.

'Booth, hi,' one of the men said. 'I told them you were coming by, they're expecting you.'

'Great,' said Booth. The man opened a secure door with a code and let them go through.

Booth knocked on the regular door on the left, and it was flung open by a twelve-year-old boy who launched himself into Booth's arms.

'DAD!' Parker yelled by way of greeting. 'MUM! Dad's here!'

'Hey buddy,' Booth laughed, peeling his son off of him. 'Can we come in?'

'Oh, yeah, sorry—' Parker stepped back, still beaming with excitement and Booth and Bones came into the living room.

'Witness protection,' Brennan said softly.

'Close enough,' Booth said, since they weren't technically witnesses, so much as easy pickings to be held hostage.

'Seeley!' Rebecca said, coming out of her office-slash-bedroom. 'And Dr Brennan, it's nice to see you.'

Brennan didn't reply, just nodded and smiled. With more people around than just Booth, she tended to clam up.

'Dad, guess what, I made a project for Science at school and it got sent to the science fair, and I WON! C'mon, you've gotta check it out—'

Booth let Parker lead them into his room where there were science fair project photos on his computer. 'Look, I made a food battery—' Parker jumped into the computer chair and scrolled through the photos. 'I got first place because I didn't just make a battery, I tested out _heaps_ of kinds of metals and fruits and potatoes and found which one was the best, look—'

Booth grinned and leaned over to see the tables and graphs Parker had made of each different fruit and metal and the amounts of energy produced.

'That's awesome, Parker,' Booth grinned, glancing at Brennan. She smiled and was happily reading Parker's findings over his shoulder.

'At first I wanted to do a volcano but three other kids were doing that,' he babbled, finding a picture of about twelve oranges, lemons and potatoes lighting up a little bulb.

'Yeah, so that was my project,' he finished, looking around to see the smiles on his Dad and Brennan's faces.

'How did you get all this stuff over to the science fair?' Booth asked.

'Oh well my internet teacher sent me all the equipment and metal and I just picked out fruit, and then I took heaps of photos and sent it back all set up.'

'Cool,' Booth grinned. 'How's, um, how's the microwave thing going?'

'Oh we got sick of that,' Parker said dismissively.

'By 'got sick of that' he means he wasn't allowed to microwave light bulbs for his science fair project,' Rebecca grinned from the doorway.

Booth chuckled. _He_ sort of wanted to microwave light bulbs, so Parker must have been just dying to have a go.

'Instead me and Lacey have been watching Guy on a Buffalo.'

'"Lacey and I"', Rebecca called as she went outside.

'Lacey and _I_,' Parker corrected himself.

'What's guy on a buffalo?' Booth asked. His son seemed to have a knack at finding good stuff on the internet.

'Who's Lacey?' Brennan asked, the first time she's spoke since she got here. Parker was too excited about seeing his dad to really notice.

'Lacey's the kid of the other family,' Parker explained. 'And she looooves Guy on a Buffalo, we were singing it all day yesterday and her parents finally told her she wasn't allowed to keep singing it,' he added with a grin. 'So she came over here to sing it with me, here it is, look—'

Parker brought up a youtube video of random clips from a 1970s western, with a funny song playing over the top to narrate the story. 'Guy on a buffaloooooo!' Parker sang. 'Punch that cougar in the faaace! Haha.' Booth was now laughing at the video too, Brennan looked confused and eventually just shrugged as she watched the Booth boys enjoying themselves. Some things just didn't make sense to her.

'Parker?' A girl knocked on the door.

'Lacey! Hey look I'm watching it again, I'm showing my dad!'

'Hi Mr Booth,' Lacey said, coming over to the computer.

'This is Dr Bones, my dad's friend from work,' Parker said, gesturing to Brennan. Lacey and Brennan smiled at each other and both said hi.

Booth caught Brennan's eye over the kids' heads and raised his eyebrows, inclining his head pointedly at each kid and grinning. Brennan got it and grinned too. Parker was pretty smitten with the slightly older girl, even over all the excitement of exploding microwaves and funny songs.

'Oh, and look, Lacey's actually wearing_ lace_ today, see?' Parker pointed out to the grown-ups, cos Lacey had a little white crochet bolero over her dress. 'Lace, Lacey? Get it?'

Booth chuckled at Parker's enthusiasm for everything and Lacey looked at what she was wearing, like she hadn't really noticed.

'Oh—and Dad, mum measured me the other day and I've grown like, an inch, see?' He got up, stretching himself up tall. 'I hope I get as tall as you.'

'You probably will,' Bones said, observing keenly the similarities between Parker and Booth's bone structure.

'Awesome,' Parker said.

'Oh, Mr Booth we've got to show you what we're making for dinner tonight,' Lacey said excitedly.

'Yeah!' Parker said. 'It was my idea!'

'He's allowed to as long as I put the stuff in and out of the oven,' Lacey said.

'It's pizza!' Parker said, leading them out into the shared courtyard and into the rooms occupied by Lacey and her parents. 'I'm making a normal one, and Lacey's making a lolly pizza for desert.'

'Yeah, it's got chocolate sauce and m&ms and lolly snakes,' Lacey grinned.

'She's in charge of the lolly one because everyone thought I would eat all the lollies instead of putting them on the pizza.'

Booth laughed. 'Yeah, I'd probably do that too.'

'But we've still got olives and pepperoni and bacon and tomatoes and cheese, so it's healthy.'

Brennan looked quizzically at the food laid out on the bench. 'I don't know if I'd call that _healthy_…'

'Well tomatoes are vegetables so they count,' Booth decided.

'Actually tomatoes are a fruit,' said Bones.

'Yeah, cos they have seeds,' said Lacey.

'Hey, if it goes with pepperoni, it's a vegetable in my books,' said Booth.

'Dad, do you know how long we're in here for?' Parker asked. 'Did you get the bad guy yet?'

'No, not yet, Parker. But when I do you'll know straight away, buddy,' Booth said. 'Hey I'm really proud of you, I know it's not the most fun being cooped up in a safe house.'

'It's okay,' Parker shrugged. 'Mum says it's better being in here than being in danger. Why would we be in danger, dad?'

'There's a man who wants to hurt your father, so he's likely to target the people he loves,' Bones said quietly.

'Yeah, that's what mum says,' Parker said sadly. 'That sucks.'

'Yeah, it does,' Booth agreed. 'But we'll go and do something fun together as soon as you get out, okay?'

'Yeah—Disneyworld!' said Parker. 'Remember, you said we could go for my birthday, and take Lacey and Bones!'

Of course he remembers that, Booth thought. When he had agreed to that a couple of months ago, Parker had wanted Bones to come, but Booth had no idea if he was going to be able to find her. He might not have agreed to Disneyworld if he hadn't been so preoccupied with keeping the hard truth about her whereabouts from his impressionable son,

Although, now that he thought about it, going to a theme park could be a lot of fun. He didn't know if Bones had ever been to one—it was the sort of normal pop-culture kid-activity she might never have been into. Or, remembering the stories she'd told him about her high school, she might never have had the friends to go with. It would be pretty fun for the four of them to go—Parker and Lacey could split up and do their thing, and he could take Bones on the scariest rollercoasters and see if she'd get scared or not, and win her stuffed toys at the carnival games. He laughed at the thought of Brennan toting a giant stuffed Mickey Mouse trying to convince him that she had _not_ screamed.

'What?' said Bones. Oh. He'd laughed out loud.

'Nothing. Hey Parker, can you give us the tour again? Bones hasn't seen everything yet.'

Parker happily grabbed Bones' hand and took off with her, saying 'You've got to check out the dvds, they have _everything_ here, you just have to ask—'

Lacey wandered off after Brennan and Parker. Mostly only FBI agents visited the safehouse, but the kids were pretty keen on hanging around with anyone who came in, boring, interesting, young or old, just for something different. Booth followed at a distance, watching Bones happily talk with Parker and Lacey. She was looking relaxed and happy now, and just as he thought that, she turned around and smiled happily at him. He didn't know if he'd ever seen such a bright smile from her. It wasn't just her mouth that was smiling, her eyes were too. She wasn't very confident with kids, but Parker was so easy-going and friendly that she couldn't really go wrong. He hung back watching his son and his Bones. They were both Booth's family. He wanted to save this image of them together in his mind.

Then Parker announced he was getting hungry, and Lacey came up with the bright idea of making the pizzas together now and having a late lunch/early dinner. They could just have sandwiches or something later tonight, but this would be much more fun.

The four of them piled into the kitchen in the Banks' apartment. Not all safe houses had kitchens, but when you were stuck inside for months at a time it was kind of nice to have activities to do like cooking, just to stave off the boredom.

'Mrs Banks taught me how to make her chocolate cake,' Parker said as they slathered tomato paste and chocolate sauce onto the pizza bases. 'It's really yum. This week she's gonna teach me something else.'

'I should get Pops to teach you his famous grilled cheese sandwiches,' Booth said.

'Oh and I can teach you my mac and cheese,' Bones said. Booth chuckled at this, picturing another scene like this back at his apartment. It was good to hear Bones talk about

'Can you pass the m&ms?'

'I need olives over here.'

'Dad! She got me with the chocolate sauce!'

'Lacey?'

'Not Lacey, Bones.'

'Bones!'

'It was an accident—whoa, now _that_ was not an accident, now I'm gonna smell like tomatoes!'

'Parker!'

'She started it.'

'Bones don't throw chocolate sauce at Parker.'

'I didn't! Here, you want the pepperoni?'

'Thanks. What else is going on this one Parker?'

'Um, bacon.'

'And tomato, and I need the chocolate sauce again.'

'It's over here Lacey. So… bacon and tomato. Oh and cheese.'

'Jelly snakes, Bones?'

'Thanks.'

'They don't have to be _neat_, Bones. You can just throw them on.'

'But this way all the slices will get the same amount.'

'That's part of the fun, you know, fighting over the best piece, having a whole 'nother slice just for that one bit of topping…'

'There should really be something green on here.'

'Green jelly snake?'

'I mean something _naturally_ green, like spinach. You know, those mysterious leafy plants that get put in salads?'

'I think jelly snakes count as green.'

'And that's why you're a Booth.'

'Yeah! High-five dad.'

'Ahh!'

'Sorry Lacey, I probably should have cleaned my hand first…'

'Now my lace top's going to be all tomato-y and red.'

'Just give it to my mum, this one time after baseball practice, I skinned my knee and got blood alllll over my clothes, and mum had to get it out for the semi-finals playoff.'

'Oh, yeah, I remember that, you were howling, I had to take you home early…'

'I wasn't that bad, I was only like, nine, I think.'

'You were ten.'

'Haha!'

'Bones! You can't take his side, you have to be on my side. Tell dad I wasn't being a baby.'

'Well there are a lot of nerves on the top layer of the skin, so an abrasion over a large area would be more painful than getting a deep cut in just one place.'

'See! Told you Dad.'

'I never called you a baby.'

'And Parker, you dad's afraid of the dentist, so you're pretty even.'

'Bones! I am not _afraid_. I just don't like them. It's different.'

'You don't like clowns either, but I think you might be a little bit scared.'

'I'm not scared of clowns, don't say that in front of Parker!'

'It's okay Dad, I don't like clowns either.'

'Really? You never told me that.'

'In fourth grade, we had a fancy dress day and Mr Miller came dressed as a clown.'

'Mr Miller's the principal.'

'Yeah, and he's um, he's really fat and grumpy, and he was on playground duty yelling at kids to get off the monkey bars. It was a bit hard to take him seriously but then the kids got detention.'

'It sounds like his personality is not at all like a clown. Clowns are meant to be jolly and humorous.'

'I think every clown I've ever met has been grumpy. Remember that time we went undercover at the circus?'

'I remember you hit me in the eye with a giant rubber ball.'

'But do you remember the clowns?'

'…. No.'

'Seriously? We questioned them. And they were grumpy. And mean, they were not even remotely jolly.'

'I don't remember. I remember they all left in the middle of the night, and my head was next to your feet in the camper-trailer bed, and you kept kicking me in the ear.'

'Really? Sorry…'

'Dad is this enough topping?'

'Whoooa! Yeah, maybe ease up there a little buddy. We're going to need to eat that with a spoon.'

'Like this, Parker.'

'Yeah but that's a lolly pizza. You're not supposed to eat too much sugar.'

'Hey where are the rest of the m&ms?'

'Parker!'

'What?'

'They're all gone! Did you eat them?'

'Only a few, I mean mum's always going on about how she doesn't want sugary food in the house or she'll get fat, I'm just helping her out…'

'No more sugar, Parker. You're going to be hyperactive and awake all night.'

Half-an-hour later, the four of them plus Lacey's parents and Rebecca were sitting around the outdoor table eating pizza and drinking coke for the kids and wine for the adults. Booth didn't stop Brennan from drinking, since by now the drugs were well out of her system and there shouldn't be any adverse interactions. She only had one glass, and she usually held alcohol pretty well so he wasn't too worried. She was doing really well, Booth could see. Thismorning she'd been more aware of her surroundings, noticing new things that hadn't registered before. And now she was out with him and five other people, and she was talking and laughing and eating. It had been a very good idea to do this today.

There was one more thing Booth wanted to do today, something he thought Brennan might now be ready for. As they finished up the dessert pizza, and the kids went off to play X-box, Booth thanked Rebecca and the Banks' for having them, Bones smiling but not saying much. She was beginning to look sleepy. Rebecca walked them inside to say goodbye to Parker.

'You have to come back soon, okay Dad?' Parker asked, giving Booth a hug.

'Yeah, I agree. It'll depend on the case, buddy, when it's safe to come, but I'm gonna keep working to get this guy and then you can come home.'

'Okay,' said Parker, slightly tearfully letting go of his dad. Brennan watched Parker and Booth compassionately. Parker was really going to miss his dad, and the time when Booth had to go was always tough on both of them.

'Bye Rebecca, see ya Lacey,' Booth said to them, Brennan standing back a little.

'Thanks for coming round,' Rebecca said as she let them out into the corridor. Booth shut the door behind them and knocked for the agents to let them out. Now that they were leaving, Bones was becoming slightly more nervous and unsettled. But Booth wanted to make one more stop on the way home, and she'd made real progress today, and it would have to happen sooner or later.


	44. Chapter 44

It was early evening and the stars were coming out, as much as they could through the reflected glow of the city lights. There was a slight chill in the air and Booth took Brennan's hand to keep track of her as they got into the unmarked FBI car and were dropped back to the SUV.

Booth waited while she climbed into the passenger seat, winking at her when she did it unassisted, then got in and started the engine, flicking on the heater as they pulled out onto the main road. He glanced across at her—her head was leaned against the window as she watched the tall lit-up buildings go past. She looked contented and peaceful, which was what Booth had been hoping for. They had almost reached their destination when she noticed they weren't going straight home.

'Are we… are we going to my place?' she asked as they turned onto her street.

'We're making a quick stopover. We need to get you some more clothes, and I thought tonight would be a good time.' In truth picking up more clothes was only half of it. Booth wanted to see how she'd cope confronted with the idea of being on her own again—not because he wanted her to go back, but because if it was going to distress her, he'd like to know now rather than in a month's time. He wanted to have a good idea of where she stood.

They pulled into her guest parking space, her car sitting beside them and got out of the SUV. Bones looked at her car like it was a relic from another life, then went with Booth over to the elevators.

'What, uh… what do we need to get?' she asked. She didn't know how she felt about being here. On the one hand she was fiercely independent and was happiest when she was in control of everything, but now… there were other things she was feeling about this place, hollow and echoing feelings that disturbed her. She didn't specifically remember, but she had a feeling something bad had happened here. And she also felt that by coming here where she was usually alone, she was somehow losing Booth. And all these feelings were so hard to pin down, so hard to identify that they resulted in a general turbulence. She felt skittish.

'Well whatever you like,' Booth said as they got off at her floor. 'You've been wearing the same jeans every second day, you've only got two tops and a dress… I mean I know how women are with clothes, you don't want to wear the same thing twice, so… here we are.'

He flashed a charm smile at her as he unlocked her door with his emergency spare key. The door swung open with a slight creak in the hinges, and Booth flicked on the light switch.

It was like stepping into a dream, or a memory from far away. It was familiar, but not comforting; recognisable, but it no longer felt like home. Brennan felt somehow chilled in this polished, streamlined apartment after the cosy warmth of Booth's. Once she hadn't felt like that, but now it was unsettling. She wanted to go home.

'You go grab some clothes or anything else you want, Bones,' Booth said, observing her reactions.

'And then we're going home?'

Booth nodded. 'Yeah.' He liked that she referred to his place as home, and not her own.

'Okay.' Bones wandered into her bedroom and started picking out clothes to take. She just grabbed the closest things she could find—a couple of tops, a skirt, a dress, another pair of jeans, and some flat shoes. And some make-up, and underwear. Not too much stuff- she always packed light when she went away on digs or trips. She stared around her room, which smelled closed up and musty. It had been months since she was last here. Everything was clean and vacant. Empty. Suddenly she needed to go find Booth. She felt irrationally terrified he might go without her and leave her here alone.

'Booth?' she asked, coming out of her room toting the bag of clothes. Her voice sounded weak and cracked, even to her own ears. She wondered if he would even have heard her.

'Over here Bones,' he said, standing in front of her music collection. She released a small breath she hadn't even realised she was holding and went over to him.

'You can tell a lot about a person by their music,' he smiled, running a finger along the spines of the cd cases.

'What does it tell you about me?' Brennan asked.

'Well… ' His finger stopped at a series of ethnic music recordings. 'You're unswayed by the people around you,' he said, taking his time to think about it and say things the right way. 'You don't just follow the rules or copy what's popular.' Brennan watched him slightly spellbound, clutching tightly at the handles of her bag of clothes. Booth moved his hand along to a collection of jazz music. 'You do your own thing. You have great respect for the basic laws of nature… melody, timing, all the nuts and bolts, but you apply it how you want to. You don't want to do the same thing twice. You don't need to rely on anyone else… you find your own way.'

There was hardly a breath in the apartment. Booth was speaking softly but his voice held its own, seeming to echo from the walls. Brennan wanted to ask if he was going to leave, but couldn't make her mouth form the words.

'Classical music… you're intelligent. A free thinker. You appreciate nuance. And subtleties.' Brennan hovered behind him mesmerised, waiting. 'And…. then we have this,' he said, nudging the Foreigner album with his thumb. Both of them were thinking of nights long ago, a song and a dance.

'What does that mean?' Brennan heard herself whisper.

'That one… you have to decide,' Booth said, finally turning around to face her. 'It means whatever you want it to mean.'

He could have said more, told her what he thought it meant, but he didn't want to overwhelm Brennan right now. It was suddenly so quiet and so dark, with only the bedroom and living room lights on. He could see Brennan was struggling with something—whether fear, attraction or something else he couldn't tell. But she really did seem to be holding it together by a thread. It was time to do something else.

'So… do you want to go for a swim?'


	45. Chapter 45

'Do you want to go for a swim?'

Go for a swim. Did she? Strange idea. Brennan was staring at a spot on the rug as she tried to process this question. She didn't know what she wanted. Somehow she was frozen, she couldn't make a decision. Her brain felt heavy with wet cement. The question was as difficult and as simple as 'chocolate or vanilla?' There were whole worlds of indecision around questions like that, short-sparking brain waves floating in the ether, irresolvable, directionless and infinite. Regular or large, cats or dogs. He might as well have asked her to land a space shuttle. She looked up at Booth with a hopeless expression. She didn't know, or maybe she just didn't care, so she needed someone else to lead right now. Someone to decide things.

'Here,' Booth said, gently prising the bag from her hands. 'Go get some swimmers on. I'll get you a towel, okay?'

Still gazing blindly at Booth, Brennan nodded and stumbled back, managing to turn around and walk back to her room, shutting the door.

Booth didn't know exactly what his motive for asking was. Looking at her music collection, he'd been hit with the memory of the last time he was here, longing and mourning and at a dead end. The pain of her loss had been so keen, and he wanted resolution for that night, to put its memory to rest. He wanted to make a new memory, of actually feeling her weight in his arms instead of trying to imagine it.

He wanted to give her a memory, too, something simple and slow like floating on their backs in that rather magical room. So far Bones had consistently been most calm and happy when she was with him and no one else, but if they spent all their time at his apartment they were both going to get a case of cabin fever. It was obvious she was spooked to be at her own place— she'd been on edge since they pulled onto her street. But this building had good security, bar that one little incident where she was kidnapped. She had Booth, and he had a badge, a gun and two fists. If she was skittish at first, going in there, he'd just have to calm her down. If they could leave tonight both feeling content and happy, he'd consider it a good day.

He went over to her linen cupboard and took out two towels, both light blue. He waited a few more minutes for Bones, then when she still hadn't come out he knocked on her door. 'You okay, Bones?'

A moment later she opened the door, dressed in a navy one-piece, and looking unsure of herself. Booth wasn't sure why, until he followed her eyes to her legs. They were covered in bruises, gashes and scars. Brennan didn't seem to be able to look away.

'You look gorgeous, Bones. They're gonna fade, okay?' Booth said, looking at her face until she met his eyes.

'Yeah,' she said softly. He held out a hand and she took it, falling into step slightly behind him as he led her out the door, stopping to pick up his coat and her bag on the way, and into the elevator to get to the indoor pool.

It was around dinner time so most people were inside. Booth gave Bones her towel to tie around her waist when he saw her still looking self-conscious. It was one thing her being around him, but he didn't want random strangers ogling her. She'd taken her hair out of the ponytail she'd worn today, and Booth felt the urge to touch the silky strands. He refrained though, and they got out as the elevator dinged and opened its doors.

The pool was empty, in fact there was no one around on the whole level. Booth shut the door behind them so they would hear it open if anyone came in. It would be slightly too chilly for swimming normally but the complex's pool was heated.

Booth set their things down on a recliner along the back wall, took Brennan's towel when she untied it and walked down a few steps into the water. 'You coming in?' he said to Bones. She nodded and walked tentatively to the edge of the water, moving slowly onto the first step.

She was moving so slowly that Booth splashed some water up onto her body. 'Ah that's cold!' she said.

'It's fine, it's warmer once you get in,' Booth said, sending a second splash. When she was on the third step, he stood up nearby and grabbed her under the arms, said 'Take a breath!' and toppled both of them back into deeper water. She instinctively wanted to squeal but breathed in quickly as they plunged into the saltwater and resurfaced.

'Booth!' she said.

'I had to get you wet, otherwise you'd still be up there putting one toe in the pool,' he told her. Brennan shook her head and smiled.

'I brought Parker here a couple of times,' Booth said as he moved to the deeper part of the pool and tread water. 'He said, and I quote it was "wicked cool".'

'I've never been here with you,' she said quietly, still near the steps and brushing the wet hair out of her eyes.

'Until tonight.'

'Yes.'

They were both standing still, a few feet apart, staring at each other. The submerged lights played the pattern of the ripples on the ceiling and the gentle slosh of the filter was the only sound in the room.

Booth waded back to the shallow end, Brennan staying where she was. She didn't know why but again she found she'd forgotten to breathe. Booth walked right up to her and wrapped her in a hug.

'Oh,' was the only thing she could say, hugging him back.

'Here, let me pick you up,' Booth said, lifting her by the waist to wrap her legs around him in a reverse piggy-back. She pinned her knees to his sides to hold herself there, and Booth slid one arm underneath her and used the other to sweep wet strands of hair off her face. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and leaned forward, pillowing her head on one shoulder.

'You okay there?'

'Yeah... This is nice.'

'Glad you came?'

'Yes. It was a good idea.'

Booth walked her slowly around the pool, enjoying the contrast of warm water, cool air and hot Brennan. She felt weightless in the water but the movement, breaths and pulse he could feel made him forget his imaginings from last time. Reality was better.

Brennan held onto Booth as he carried her, smoothing her hand over his back partly just to reinforce that he was here. She wasn't dreaming.

The pool room was enormous, bigger than her living room and kitchen, and there was something about its echoing emptiness that was just a little bit scary. It was a good type of scary though, she decided. She was just here with Booth and she was in a good position to confirm that he was strong enough to defend her from anyone malevolent who came in through that door. In fact it was almost a nice sort of creepy—the way you'd watch an old horror movie with someone beside you to hold your hand. It was thrilling enough to send shivers down her spine, but because she was with Booth she felt completely safe.

'I was….' She started.

'Yeah?'

'In my apartment,' she said, leaning forward a little bit. She didn't need to look in his face, she could feel the words rumbling in his chest when he spoke, and could time each breath he took. She closed her eyes and just let her other sense take over, feeling the soft sway of the ripples as Booth walked around the pool.

'You were in your apartment,' Booth prompted.

'Yeah,' said Brennan dozily.

'Did you remember something?'

Did she? The words had just sort of come to her from nothing. 'I came home,' she heard herself say.

'After the case.'

'What?'

'Samantha, the teenage girl we found.'

'Oh… yeah,' she said, not really knowing if she remembered that or not, but replying anyway.

'You came home,' Booth said, holding her to him tighter as he stepped around the deep end, staying at the edge so he could stand up. Brennan responded by snuggling into him more. 'Something happened,' he said for her.

'Yeah.'

'Do you remember?'

'I… I don't know. I remember it all going black.'

That made sense, he thought. She was caught off-guard, someone sneaked up behind her on her way to the shower. She wouldn't have seen it coming.

'Someone attacked you,' he told her. She seemed to be trying to understand.

'…I was at home, I came home,' she said again.

'Yeah Bones, you did,' said Booth, feeling a wave of sadness wash over him. She was so changed. She really couldn't remember. He wanted so badly to put the pieces back together, but this wasn't just something he could fix. Maybe it wasn't something anyone could fix.

'I don't remember after that,' she whispered, as if the weight of her own limitations had just come crashing down on her. 'I don't remember.'

'Bones, it's okay,' Booth assured her. He needed to assure himself, too. 'It's not always going to be like this.'

'I… I want it to be like this,' she said with a hitch.

'You'll get better, it'll happen…'

'I mean, I don't want you to go,' she rambled.

'Go? No, Bones I'm not going anywhere,' he said, coming to a stop.

'Really?'

'Yeah. Really.'

'…. Okay.'

The water was nearly up to their shoulders, and Booth slipped his hands under her arms and gently peeled her off. Brennan looked at him quizzically as he set her on her feet.

'Try floating on your back,' Booth said. He pointed up to the ceiling where the rippled reflections danced on the roof. 'Just lie back and watch,' he said, turning her around, watching her look up where he was pointing.

'It's pretty,' she said quietly. Booth smiled at this assessment, and supported her head as she kicked off the ground. He tried to keep her ears above the water so he could still talk to her, moving into deeper water and resting her head on his shoulder.

Brennan lay there, staring up at the ripple patterns. They were relaxing, and she thought she could make out a patch where no reflections were cast, which would be where Booth was standing and she was floating. She moved her arms out to the sides like she was making an imaginary snow angel. Booth smiled and slowly walked backwards, drawing her with him, spinning around in a slow circle, watching the faint smile playing on her mouth as she looked up.

'They're like stars,' she said after a while.

'Yeah?'

'But instead of points, they're waves…' Brennan went quiet. Booth wondered if she was thinking about how light works, but at the serene look on her face, she seemed to have just fallen into a reverie of their beauty.

'Like the northern lights,' Booth suggested.

'Not really, the lights are caused by gas particles…. in the earth's atmosphere and… electrically charged particles from the sun,' she said slowly and softly.

'There's my squinty Bones,' Booth chuckled. It was good to remember that underneath all of this, she was still Brennan.

They gazed at the reflections for a few more minutes before Booth decided they should probably head home. He lifted Brennan under her arms again and stood her on her feet, guiding her back up the stairs and grabbing their towels. There were showers at the back of the room so Booth took her over, handing her the bag of clothes to get warmed up and dressed. She took it and Booth quickly did the same, coming out before she was finished. The chances of anyone else, dangerous or not coming in was fairly slim but he didn't want to take any risks.

Brennan came out five minutes later, her hair wet and combed and wearing a coat over her clothes. She shouldered her bag and came back over to Booth, who took the bag from her and gave her a hand in return, and they walked back to the elevator and down to the car.


	46. Chapter 46

With all that had happened today, Booth had almost forgotten that the night before, Brennan had been having a seizure and was at some point going to be hit with the accompanying exhaustion. Even after a good twelve hours of sleep last night it was quite impressive that she'd done so much today. So by the time he helped her out of the elevator and into his apartment, it wasn't surprising the first place she wanted to go was bed.

Booth hung up his coat and put his gun away in the safe. As he locked it up he was reminded of a night not so long ago when Jacob Broadsky had broken into his house. He suddenly felt the need to see Brennan.

He followed her into the bedroom to see her standing at the foot of the bed, staring at it. The sheets had been stripped off and there was a faint smell of lemon air-freshener.

'Bones, you sleep on the airbed again tonight, okay?' he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. 'I had a cleaner come and fix the mattress while we were out. It's gonna need to sit overnight.'

Brennan looked close to tears at being confronted with this memory, so Booth slung an arm over her shoulders and walked her around to the air bed. 'Come on, you're okay, Bones, here's your pyjamas, go get changed okay?'

He was struck once again by how weird it was to be walking her through simple tasks like this, to need to think out loud for her. He both liked and disliked it at once. Getting to take care of Brennan was something very few people could have claimed to do, and as much as he liked the closeness and trust she gave him, he just wanted her to be herself.

She nodded and went with an armful of clothes into the bathroom. Booth took the chance to re-make the sheets on the air bed, and pump it up a little since it had slightly deflated. It was really far too early for him to go to bed, but he could see Bones was tired and he could always lie in bed reading. He always kept a lamp on in the bedroom because he was certain that Bones would have been kept in dark places or blindfolded for a significant part of the time she was missing. He didn't want her to wake up at night and not know where she was.

He grabbed the book of world records she'd been reading the other night and stretched out with it propped up on his chest. 'Hey,' he said as she came out of the bathroom, looking skittish. 'Did you know that the smallest living horse, in 2006 was 17.5 inches tall and called Thumbelina?'

'No,' Bones said, walking tentatively towards him with her old clothes in a bundle.

'You're okay, come here,' Booth said, reaching a hand out for her. She took it and sat on the very edge of the airbed. 'Come on, lie down and I'm gonna tell you all about the tallest ever dog,' Booth told her. He wasn't going to let this be weird. Brennan lay down tentatively beside him, and he wrapped an arm around her pulling her close, positioning her head on his chest, and held the book up where they could both see. 'Check this out- this dog is 43 inches tall, he's a Great Dane called Giant George,' Booth said pointing to the picture. 'Look at the size of him! If Parker came anywhere near this dog he'd be trying to put on a saddle,' he grinned. Bones smiled too, and angled her body in more to see the book better. Booth took that as a successful play, so he kept reading out the records he thought she would like.

'Longest dog tongue, check this out—4.5 inches, that doesn't sound that long… but the dog weighs about a kilo so maybe it's proportional…' Brennan blinked sleepily, which Booth just caught out of the corner of his eye. 'You go to sleep whenever you want to, Bones I'll keep reading til you fall asleep, 'kay?'

'Okay.'

Booth adjusted his arm around her so it wouldn't cut off circulation to his hand when she dozed off. 'Here's one about the world's biggest pizza base, look at the size of that thing! I think working for the Guinness records people would be fun, I wonder how you get a job like that…'

By the time Booth had read through the most scoops of ice-cream on a cone, the fluffiest cat and the biggest elephant ears Bones was fast asleep. He just lay listening to her breaths for a while before putting the book away and falling asleep too.

.

Booth woke up at sunrise. Brennan was still curled up facing him, so he slid off the air bed as carefully as he could trying not to wake her up. He would really have liked to go for a jog but settled for going into the corridor and running up and down the stairs a few times.

When he was feeling awake he came back and had a shower, then put on some toast and coffee and got out his laptop. With the events of the last couple of days with Brennan he hadn't had a chance to chase up the new lead on Broadsky. But as he checked his email, the shipping company had replied to his request for "Brian Forster's" documents. They were available to be picked up any time.

Booth waited until eight o'clock before calling the Hoover. Genny Shaw's team had been working on the footage from the front gate at the dock, and had isolated the frames that showed the most detail on Broadsky and his "work experience kid". Someone emailed him the photos but he would need to come into the office to run them through a database looking for a match.

As much as Booth wanted to let Bones have a quiet day at home, maybe just sleeping and watching movies it looked like he'd have to take her to work. It wasn't so bad—he had a comfy couch in his office, and could draw the blinds to give her more privacy. There was no way he was going to leave her here on her own. Not when Broadsky could, and already had literally strolled in off the street.

He got dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and a jacket, deciding that by going casual he'd have a little more impetus to stare down anyone who wanted him to work more hours or take on other cases. He was taking care of two things- Brennan and the Broadsky case, and that was it.

Brennan came wandering into the living room, her hair still messed and flyaway from sleeping. 'Hey, Bones,' Booth said smiling. 'Want some breakfast?' Brennan shook her head and stretched her arms out. 'Well I'm gonna bring some bread and fruit for you, cos we've gotta go to the Hoover today,' he said.

'Oh,' was all she said in response. To be honest she still looked too sleepy to be really taking in anything he said.

Booth finished off his coffee and then went to get Brennan out some clothes. He decided not to push her to do things right now, not after what she'd been through in the last few days. He got out some soft yoga pants and a tunic dress, and a coat she could use as a blanket in his office. He handed them to her and took her over to the bathroom door, closing the door behind her.

She came out a few minutes later dressed and ready to go, but not much more awake. Booth slung an arm around her waist and led her out to the SUV.

Brennan wasn't hugely aware of where she was or what was happening around her. She felt drained, and she didn't know why. The last few days were a blur, she couldn't remember what she did yesterday. If she didn't have Booth to be aware of things for her she would probably by now have stepped out onto the street without looking, or forgotten to eat for days, or something like that. Maybe she would make an issue about it later on when she was feeling more herself, but right now she was just happy not to think.

They drove to the Hoover without talking and Booth had to open her door and unbuckle her seatbelt for her. He'd never seen her so out of it, not since he first brought her to the hospital. He wasn't sure if her being here was the best idea, but what else could he do? He had his own office, with a door, if she got worse during the day he could always call a doctor to look at her there. But he hoped it wouldn't come to that.

She slumped against him in the elevator up to his floor, and he walked quickly with her into his office so she wouldn't be gawked at by the Hoover rumour mill, which included just about everybody.

'Here you go, Bones, you can lie down on the sofa.' He took her over to it and sat down with her, letting her lie down behind him like she had a couple of times before. 'You feeling okay?' She murmured 'Yeah,' just audibly, and Booth got up briefly to get his case notes and laptop before sitting back down in front of her. He was hoping she'd fall asleep, otherwise she'd lie there just feeling bored, or maybe let her thoughts whirl round and round, thinking about what had happened to her. He let one hand ghost over her waist and hip as he ran the CCTV photos through a database.

Someone knocked on the door and when he didn't answer, not wanting to yell they opened it a fraction. 'Booth?'

'Come in,' he said, trying to throw his voice and failing. Genny Shaw came in holding a USB drive.

'This is all the tape footage of Broadsky and the other man,' she said handing it to Booth.

'Thanks. I haven't got any hits yet…'

'No, I ran it through yesterday but nothing came up. We've got height, weight, hair colour and approximate age but whoever this guy is, he's not on our system.'

'Yeah, okay thanks,' Booth said, slipping the thumb drive in to open the video files.

'How's Dr Brennan?' Genny asked.

'Oh, she's, you know, she's doing it tough, but she's getting there. I'm really proud of her,' he added, stroking her head. She appeared to be asleep and not to have heard, but Booth wasn't just saying that for show. Whatever she'd been through, it was severe enough to cause reactions like this. And Brennan never gave in to anything without a fight. He could tell how hard she'd fought—it was proportional to how sick she was now.

'I sent an agent to go get those files from the dock's office in the city,' Shaw said. 'He should be back within an hour, he'll bring them straight up.'

'Great, thanks. Anything else I should know about?'

'Kraus is still being uncooperative, well I think so… he's answering our questions but everything he says, you can tell he's trying to play us.'

Booth frowned. 'How many people have been in to interrogate him?'

'Uh, a few yesterday, I went in last night with Sweets, he didn't give us anything.'

'Okay, from now on I don't want anyone else going in there without talking to me first. We're not begging him for information, we'll get it ourselves. I'm not going to let this guy think he holds all the aces.'

'Yes sir.'

Booth nodded. 'Okay. Thanks for all that, I appreciate it.'

Shaw said 'No worries' and left the office. Booth kept checking through the footage, before calling the Jeffersonian to see how they were going.

'Hodgins.'

'Hey, it's Booth. How's the case going at your end?'

'Not a lot to tell, but the second you have those files let me know and I'll be there. We've got his scent, I can feel it, man.'

Booth let out a short laugh. 'Ha, yeah, and it was thanks to you we got to the docks. How's the rest of the squints?'

'They're holding up. Are you at the Hoover? Cam might come round later to visit Brennan. She's been really worried about her.'

Oh. Booth felt a twang of guilt. There were other people who cared about Bones besides just him. 'Yeah sure, tell her she's welcome any time. She can come round now if she wants.'

'Yeah, I'll tell her that,' Hodgins said. 'I've been doing some research on Kraus by the way, I've got access to some otherwise classified files, one of the advantages of owning the Cantilever group…'

Booth looked down at Brennan, curled up behind him, her face nearly buried in his hip. He figured that over the phone, this conversation was unlikely to distress her. The last thing he wanted was to trigger another flashback.

'Okay I'm listening. What did you find?'

'Well first of all, and this is a bit freaky but Kraus is supposed to have links to the modern-day cult of the Illuminati—'

'No. No-no-no, no conspiracy theories Hodgins. I need facts, indisputable, recordable cross-referenceable sources, people I can beat up. That sort of thing.'

'Sooo… no Illuminati.'

'That's it. What do you have that's _not_ the Illuminati?'

'Uh, well… he's got a degree majoring in Ancient History. He's actually written papers specifically on ancient torture techniques from ancient Egypt, Greece, India and Babylon, starting with the foundations of occultism or 'hidden knowledge'. He's done a whole thesis on the Egyptian Book of the Dead, so you've got explicit methods of torture, intimidation to create trauma, "potions" as they were called and "spells", which is some sort of hypnotism.'

'Wow, okay. Did you get a hold of the thesis?'

'Nah, just the abstract. But we're talking the late 70s - early 80s, so it's not exactly the most recent thing he's been up to. But seriously—this isn't Illuminati but just hear me out—'

'Uh huh…'

'Okay, so there's a reference from his college days to a circle basically under the banner of the Free Masons— all sorts of creepy guys were into this - the goal was subverting people into total enslavement. Supposedly for the good of the unwashed masses but really, just for a new world order, ruled by them.'

'Okay…'

'Kraus also had links back in the 80s to, get this, surviving underground elements of the Nazi government. There's more—'

'Hodgins this is all great, but I don't know how useful it is to finding Broadsky and McCullough or getting information out of Kraus,' Booth said. Getting Hodgins away from conspiracy theories was worse than trying to round up pigeons with a sheep dog. 'I mean, Bones needs… I just, I'd like to know exactly what happened to her, and then work out how to fix it. I mean we can hold Kraus until a trial, there's DNA linking him to the warehouse. But Bones, she needs more than that, more than what I can give her, we need answers…'

'Yeah, I know man. We'll keep looking until we find something,' Hodgins promised. 'No one's giving up.'

'Right.'

'Say hi to Brennan for me, Cam's just leaving now.'

'Great. Thanks Hodgins.' Booth ended the call, and leaned forwards resting his elbows on his knees. What did they have so far—could they use Kraus as leverage for anything? Not really, since they weren't in contact with either of the other two. Considering the profiles of these men- that they felt no remorse or responsibility for their actions- it wasn't all that likely that they would band together to save each other, if it didn't directly benefit them. They'd only be in it for their own good.

Booth checked on Brennan, she was still lightly sleeping, though she was now curled around him like a cat. He absently ran a hand along her side as he tried to think what to do next.

Just as he'd watched the surveillance footage through a second time, Cam knocked on the door and quietly opened it. Her eyes immediately fell on the partners on the sofa. She'd never seen Brennan like this before. It was so different, it was almost unnerving. Booth however seemed to be taking it in his stride, Cam thought.

'She's looking healthier than when I saw her last,' she said. 'Colour in her face, has she been eating?'

'On and off,' said Booth looking up at her. 'Sometimes it's only juice and pancakes, but I'm working on it.'

Cam shut the door and came in, pulling up a spare office chair near the couch. 'I um, brought some results over,' she said, handing him a file.

'Results of what? Oh…'

Booth opened the folder to show detailed reports of every item from Kraus' torture case. There were seventeen needles, four odd-looking screwdrivers, something that looked like a wine cork, a small, flat sheet of metal and a length of chain. Everything had been soaked in bleach so there was no trace of DNA left on the actual instruments, Brennan's or otherwise. Particulates on the outside of the case included a lot of dust matching the warehouse where it was found, a bunch of fingerprints from the FBI guys and Booth, and what looked to be a few partial fingerprints of Kraus'. There was also a small piece of skin inside the case that was a DNA match for Kraus, confirming what they already knew.

'You think this stuff was used on Bones?' Booth asked quietly.

Cam looked hesitant, then apologetic as she nodded. 'Well, I uh… the night you found her, while we were checking her over I took photos of a lot of her injuries.'

'…You what?'

'Her arms, legs, head and back, because it's easy to forget that at some point, there's likely to be a trial,' Cam explained, holding up a hand to tell him to calm down.

'Where are the photos?' Booth asked roughly.

'No one else has seen them, Booth. They're just on my phone.'

Booth was holding out his hand for the phone. Cam ignored that and kept talking.

'I used the images to match her injuries with the weapons in the case. It's hard to tell conclusively without having Brennan herself to cross-examine, but I have no intention of bringing her in to the lab to be studied. Taking photographs is standard at any crime scene, Booth. I want her to get justice.'

Booth sat brooding in stony silence. Then, 'Did you take photos during her rape exam?'

'Yes.'

'Give me the phone.'

'_Booth,_' Cam said. 'You're overreacting. Why are you so upset about this?'

Booth leaned forward. Maybe Cam was right, he was overreacting, but rational or irrational, he was just angry.

'Bones didn't get to decide this,' he said, not raising his voice too much so he wouldn't wake her up. 'She hasn't had a say in anything that's happened to her so far. And if no one could ask her, then you should have asked _me_.'

Cam could see that arguing here wasn't going to make Booth feel better. 'The photos are unlabeled, they're completely confidential. I don't know Brennan would want you to see them, Booth. I mean, look, you already know how the injuries on her arms are doing, you've been taking care of her for weeks. I was acting in a professional medical capacity, and a legal one, and we are going to get these sons of bitches, Booth, we're going to bring them in.'

She had said that so passionately that Booth had to admit, despite how he felt, Cam really was trying to act in Bones' best interest.

'I just… she's so different,' Booth said at a volume not much higher than a whisper. It was nice, at times like this, to have an old friend who you didn't have to explain things to, who just knew you. 'You know, a week before she was taken, we were driving home from a crime scene, and she told me to pull over.' He choked out a monosyllabic laugh at the memory. 'I pulled over thinking something was wrong, and she just hopped out and came round to my side and told me to get out, she was driving. Hah. I mean, we'd been having the 'who's driving' discussion all day and she just wanted to show me she was good handling the car on the wet roads after it had been raining, and we were driving along and she just…. She kept trying to crack jokes, about the weather, I don't know where she gets this stuff from, like 'how does a hurricane see? with its eye', and as she told them she was laughing at them. Then she tried to drop me off at the Hoover and go for a drive by herself to make up for all the times she doesn't get to drive …'

Cam looked down at Brennan, her hands were tucked under her chin and her head was wedged between Booth's hip and the cushion. She was basically spooning him. Cam was all the more affected because she had been spending the last few days matching Brennan's injuries with potential weapons, trying to figure out what that time must have been like. Seeing Brennan here like this was making her emotional.

'Oh and she told me this other one, it was something like 'what's a tornado's favourite game? - Twister', and then she started trying to explain what Twister is. She was so excited I just let her tell me...'

Cam took a deep breath and nodded. She had been meaning to go over with Booth the list of injuries, but now she was here, she couldn't bring herself to do it. Not right now. Booth was looking overwhelmed as well. Brennan started to stir and Booth turned around to see her. 'Hey,' he said when she opened her eyes.

'Hey' she replied. She stretched out a little so she was lying straight instead of curled, and Booth shifted over to let her sit up. She leaned against the back of the couch and yawned, then looked around the office. 'Are we at the Hoover?' she asked blearily.

Cam could see the pain on Booth's face. He had been doing pretty well until she came in and started talking about torture and photos. Damn.

'Yeah you're in my office, Bones. You fell asleep there, do you want a drink or anything?'

Brennan swiped her hand over her face to wake herself up. 'No. I mean, yeah…. water…'

'Sure.' Booth got up and grabbed a water bottle from his desk and handed it to her. She said 'thank-you' quietly and unscrewed the lid, sipping at it, and she noticed Cam.

'Cam?'

Cam smiled at her. A lot of the time Brennan would call her Dr Saroyan, but she had a feeling that nothing Brennan said right now was being censored or filtered. 'Hi Brennan. It's nice to see you, I've missed you.'

'Oh,' Bones said, not knowing how to respond to that. She frowned for a moment then looked at Booth, as if she expected him to help her out.

Right then, there was another knock on the office door and Sweets popped his head in. 'Guys? Oh hi Dr Saroyan, nice to see you—I was just coming to see how Dr Brennan is doing.'

'She's great, Sweets,' Booth said, getting some of his swing back as the kid came in. He was sort of bizarrely fond of Sweets, he wasn't so bad as long as he held off with shrinking everyone.

Brennan was a little overwhelmed with another person in the room. She had been dreaming, and she couldn't remember what about, but it hadn't been nice and left the emotional equivalent of a sour taste. She'd woken up breathing in Booth's scent, lying right behind him, but if she hadn't been she might well have freaked out after her dream. She had just registered Cam there, but now with Sweets, it was social overload. She put her face in Booth's shoulder. She could cope with just Booth. She wanted him to make them go away.

Cam looked concernedly from Brennan to Sweets. Booth was off in his own little world looking at Brennan. It was a bit rude, really, thought Cam with a slight smirk. There were other people there too. Booth caught Brennan's eye and smiled, and she answered with a huge smile of her own, then leant up and kissed him on the cheek, oblivious to her audience. Seeing Booth smile like that just made her happy. She was acting purely on impulse. If something bad happened next, she might flip over entirely, but in that moment, she was happy.

Booth was quite aware of their audience, and he wasn't pleased that they were there. He wrapped an arm tightly around Brennan beside him and turned with a slightly defiant gaze to Sweets and Cam. He was feeling too volatile to handle this well. Even as he held Brennan he knew she was going to pick up on his turbulence. And from there on in it would be like Pops kicking his ass at dominoes.

Sweets and Cam didn't know exactly why, but they felt the vibe. Brennan wasn't smiling any more. She looked hurt and confused that Booth wasn't looking at her or even kissing her back. Had she done something wrong? She'd upset him. She didn't know how. She started to recoil.

Sweets wasn't employed by the FBI for nothing. He had picked up on the vibes in the room pretty clearly. Booth and Brennan were complicated and odd, but sometimes they were just easy to read. Sweets knew that right now, they were heading for an implosion. _I'm gonna have to intervene_ he thought, not hugely sure about this.

Bones was looking at Booth, who was looking straight ahead. She sensed his mood loud and clear. He wasn't happy. Her arm twitched of its own accord. She stared at it and held up her arm to look at it, see if It happened again. She stole a glance over at Booth, wanting to show him, but he was looking away, and his arm behind her had gone straight and rigid. She started to say his name. 'Boo..'

'Uh, Agent Booth? I actually—Genny Shaw phoned me and Agent Jeff is on his way up with the paperwork you wanted. I was actually wondering if Dr Brennan would like to hang out in my office for a while. I've got a bunch of new art-therapy supplies, this new holistic thing they want me to try, and I was hoping someone could come help me test them out.'

Cam looked from Sweets to Booth and Brennan, who were both on edge now. 'Hey, that sounds like fun,' she said, clapping her hands once together. 'I'd love to but I have to meet Michelle after lunch. What do you think, Booth?'

Booth had figured out what Sweets was doing prettymuch instantly. He was bailing them out, and to be honest, Booth needed it. He wasn't going to shake off this funk he was feeling by sitting here with Bones, making her upset. He had to move this case along or it was going to poison first him, and then her.

'What do you think, Bones? You wanna go up with Sweets?'

Brennan looked around at everyone feeling disoriented. 'Uh…' She couldn't get any words out. Booth was going to have to make this happen. He got up and pulled Brennan to her feet. 'I've gotta go catch some bad guys for a bit, Bones. Go up with Sweets, you can stay with him until I come and get you. You'll be perfectly safe in the Hoover. You can even sleep on his lounge if you like,' he added, glancing at Sweets.

Brennan looked conflicted. Booth was off, somehow, but now he was being charming again. It confused her. She didn't know if she could trust her own discernment. Was she seeing or feeling things that weren't real?

Booth walked her over to Sweets. She was frowning, he couldn't tell what was going on in her head and she couldn't explain it to him. He needed to stop this situation from getting worse. Deciding Brennan's needs were more important than his privacy, he pulled her in for a goodbye hug and planted several kisses on her face, hoping that would tip the scales of her borderline mood.

He released her and Cam got up, taking this as her cue to head back to the lab. 'I'll come get you, okay?' Booth said, looking at Bones until she nodded.

It felt wrong. Like when Parker had run into the school gates on that very first day, or when Rebecca came to pick him up after their rare weekends together. This was the first time Bones wasn't going to be at his side, or at least within sight or shouting distance, except for those five days when she was asleep. He felt guilty, and bereft. He almost wanted to give Sweets a desperate rant about how to take care of her— of how she liked to curl up and watch movies with two pillows, or how her favourite drink was apple juice, or how when she was stressed out you just had to read her a squinty science article from a journal and she'd settle. But he didn't actually want Sweets doing any of those things. Bones wasn't going to be like this forever, and when she was back to being herself, he wanted to be the only one who'd seen her like this. Having her so vulnerable left her wide open to things she wouldn't normally bat an eyelid about. Or maybe it was just that Booth didn't like sharing.

Finally he tore himself away from her big scared eyes, making an effort to smile convincingly before he led the way out of his office.

'Booth!' called Agent Jeff, getting out of the elevator down the corridor. 'I've got the dock files!'

'Great,' Booth replied, following Jeff into the bullpen without a backward glance.


	47. Chapter 47

'So what've we got?' Booth asked, leaning over Jeff's desk where he was laying out the files.

'The employment details include a bank account, phone and address, a brief resume of past employers and social security number,' Jeff said, pointing to the relevant documents.

'All under the false name.'

'I asked them if they'd ever called the number or checked the address, and they said that because the business is run off-site, everyone's paycheques are posted out every month.'

'The address listed is a house, not a post office box,' Booth said. 'And it's different from his known address. I camped out there for a few days, and it's been under surveillance for months… he hasn't showed. What about the phone?'

'They don't know, they could only give me information about policies and procedures. The guys there wouldn't know Broadsky from a bar of soap.'

'Right. Well I'm going over there. You want to come as my backup?'

'Sure thing.'

Booth and Jeff gathered up their notes and headed down to the SUV.

.

Cam drove back to the lab, still, what was the word… perturbed. Something that had been playing on her mind was the absence of any knives in Kraus' kit. The most obvious thing a knife had been used for was the incision on Brennan's arm to insert the drug capsule. Booth had mentioned to her earlier that Brennan remembered a larger collection of torture equipment. Cam didn't know whether this other collection had been kept at the warehouse and was just removed by Kraus on the day of the raid, or if there was a second location.

She wanted to discuss this with Hodgins. Not Angela— as Brennan's best friend it was a bit much for her to hear all the gruesome and frightening details, Cam just didn't think it was fair to put her through that. Ange could cope fine if it had been an anonymous victim, but not someone she loved.

She pulled into the Jeffersonian car park, and headed up to the lab. Hodgins was in his office trying to coax a snake in an empty fishtank to eat some little food pellets.

'Hey Cam,' he said without turning around. Cam frowned so he added, 'saw your reflection in the glass.'

'Oh,' Cam said. Hodgins turned to face her and pulled up a wheelie office chair, sitting on it backwards. 'So uh, how's the evidence looking?'

'Well, I found Kraus' left index finger print, that's photographed as evidence. Still no DNA on the instruments. I've noted all the measurements of the syringes, screwdrivers and everything.'

'We need to get a picture of what happened.'

'Well so far we know there were at least two locations.— the warehouse and the site where Booth found her. And since both the FBI team, _and_ Wendell and I have scoured the cliff face and surrounding area and didn't find anything, I feel confident there was at least one more location.'

'Well it makes sense that Broadsky wouldn't want us to find their HQ, just drove out into the scrub to dump Brennan. She could have been kept in one or two spots, or in dozens of locations,' said Cam shaking her head. 'All of them, anywhere she was held will have a piece of the puzzle.'

'What about Kraus, is he talking?'

'He's talking just fine, it's more the mind games and lies that are stuffing things up,' Cam said. 'Sweets has been monitoring him via video feed, slowing down the speed to pick out physical tells of lying from the stills.'

'Can we get a hold of the tape?'

'Why, you want to see if he's lying? I think that's better left up to Sweets…'

'I want to see his clothes, hair, shoes, see if anything rings a bell. Anything that could give me a location or a clue.'

'And speaking of, while I was at the Hoover I got the papers for Kraus' blue sedan. They did a sweep for fingerprints but there should be particulates galore on the tyres and the floor mats.'

'Nice. I'll head on over. Can you give Slinky some water, he's just run out.'

Hodgins happily took the papers and skipped out of the office, leaving a spluttering Cam to contend with the snake.

.

Booth and Jeff sped through the bulk of the traffic using the siren. Technically, there wasn't any great need to get there fast, since there was little chance Broadsky would actually be there. It wasn't even certain that Broadsky had given the address of a building he frequently used. Booth reckoned he had to have a sort of lair, or base of operations _somewhere_, since his official residence was vacant. The FBI had been through it, and it certainly didn't have the range of weapons an elite sniper would be using.

Since he made substantial money from profession hit jobs, Booth didn't think working at the docks was much more than an alibi. His bank account was probably valid, but he could easily get by without his payslips. It just depended on how paranoid he was of being caught.

After half an hour of speeding, siren-blaring and making cars part like the red sea, they had reached the outskirts of town. Their destination was about 8 miles south of the warehouse Kraus had been using. Booth turned off the lights and siren a few miles away from the site.

'So left at the next intersection,' Jeff said. (Booth just didn't feel like listening to the GPS today.)

'Ohhh...kay,' Booth said as they cruised around the corner and to the very end of the street.

It was a charming sort of neighbourhood. The blocks were larger, and most of them had tall established trees, some with rope swings hanging on the branches. There were even small boats parked on trailers in some of the driveways. Poking out from just about everywhere were bright flowers—daisies, tulips, roses. It was picture perfect. And it gave Booth and Jeff the chills.

They pulled up the SUV in front of the house, got out and went to the front door, Jeff deciding to go around the back in case anyone tried to escape. When Jeff was out of sight Booth rang the doorbell.

There were sounds of shuffling and something hollow banging on the floor, and an elderly woman finally opened the door, leaning on a walking stick.

'Yes?' she croaked.

Booth showed her his badge. 'Hello ma'am, FBI—I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.'

The old lady scowled and turned back inside. 'Well come on in then,' she said gruffly over her shoulder.

Booth stepped inside and closed the door behind him. The woman was lowering herself into a worn old armchair, where she had a cup of coffee she'd been drinking when he knocked. Booth perched on the sofa opposite. Who was this woman—was she someone Broadsky knew, or just an unfortunate person picked at random?

Booth handed her a photo. 'This man's name is Jacob Broadsky, we're trying to find him.'

The woman took the photo and squinted at it.

'This address was given to us by his employers as his place of residence—you might have received mail addressed to a Brian Fisher, or Brian Forster or to Jacob Broadsky.'

The woman gave him the photo back with a slight scowl. 'I knew he'd never amount to anything, getting mixed up in all this what-not,' she said.

Booth frowned. 'You know him?'

'He's my son,' the woman said, with a touch of defensiveness. 'I'm Elma Broadsky, and Jake's never put a foot right since his father died, always trying to go about things the wrong way— like I've always told him to take cod liver oil, and do you think he listened?'

Booth observed Elma as she spoke. Now that he thought about it, he could see the similarities in her face and build to Broadsky's. They had the same eyes, that seemed to look at you with a sneer.

'We're… we're trying to find him,' Booth said, wondering even as he spoke if she would just refuse to be involved or would happily hand her disappointing son over. 'If you have any information…'

'Well I don't,' Elma snapped. 'Once in a blue moon he comes round to pick up his mail. Usually late at night when I'm already asleep. Doesn't think to come round to visit, just uses his key and takes off. Ungrateful…' Elma trailed off and seemed to be muttering to herself underneath her breath. Booth had the feeling it was him she was berating now.

'You don't know anything about his whereabouts now, or over the past three months?' Booth prodded.

Elma looked up from her mumbled monologue sharply. 'No! I said that once, get it into your head. Nothing I can do about it.' She glared at him over the rim of her coffee mug.

'Right, no that's fine,' Booth said, sensing that now might be a good time to leave, before she became any more irate. He got to his feet and held his hand up when she tried to stand too. 'It's alright Mrs Broadsky, I can let myself out. Thank you for your help, it's much appreciated.' He shot her a charm smile for good measure. It was handy being able to do that.

Elma slouched back into the chair, muttering something to herself again, but seemed a little mollified. Booth exited the room, and walked back to the front door slowly, looking around him as he went, just in case there was anything in the house that Jake had left behind. As he got to the front door, he spotted a little pile of envelopes with Jacob's name on them on a side table. He hovered, nudging them a bit so he could see who they were from. There were two from the docks, one from a bank, the same account he'd given for his job, and a final one, a subscription from a gun magazine. Booth glanced behind him to see that toe coast was clear, and picked up that last one, slippng it inside his jacket before stepping out the door.

He saw Jeff waiting at the corner of the house, and Jeff walked over to meet him. 'Did she know him?' he asked.

'Yeah, she's his mother.'

'Wow. That seems twisted.'

'A lot of things about Jacob Broadsky are twisted. She didn't know where he was, or at least wasn't going to tell me. Did you find anything?'

Jeff glanced back over his shoulder as they got back into the car. 'There was some sort of makeshift shooting range in the back yard,' he said, putting on his seatbelt. 'I snapped a few shots, but the target board looked old, like it was made a good ten or twenty years ago. Wood was rotten.'

'Yeah, probably where he used to practice as a kid,' Booth said.

'Yeah, there weren't many holes in the board, just poc a lot of marks like from an airgun.'

Booth didn't mention to Jeff he'd taken the magazine. He had a feeling that Jake was more than just a subscriber, since it was a fairly obscure magazine. He'd have to investigate it back at the Hoover.

Booth had driven almost back to the highway when his cell phone went off. 'Dammit,' he said, fumbling in his pocket for it. They sailed down the road as he finally got it and answered the call without looking to see who it was from. 'Booth.'

'Hello Seeley.'

Broadsky. Booth put on the brakes and pulled over to the side of the road. 'Jacob,' he said, signalling at Jeff to get on to the Hoover about tracing the call. 'It's been a long time.'

'Too long. You're not really keeping to our agreement.'

'What agreement?'

'Your partner, in exchange for you dropping this case. I'd have thought you would be more careful with her.'

'We never had an agreement, Jacob. It's just been you calling the shots. What do you want from me?'

'I'm assuming you have declined my offer, to work with me.'

'I respect your skills, Jake, but I don't respect what you do with them.'

'Hm. You know, you never see the bullet that takes you down.'

'Is that a threat?'

'Self-defence, Booth. An aggressive offence is the best defence. Think of this as an advance warning. You don't have to go down in this.'

'Look, Jake, I'm a simple guy, just like you. I just want the good guys to win and the bad guys to lose, and my loved ones safe. I don't really care about what you do so long as you're not breaking the law.'

'In my books the end justifies the means. But you know, I really would have thought by now, you'd have changed your tune.'

Booth sat there, staring straight ahead and breathing into the phone. 'Tell me what you did to Brennan. Tell me exactly what happened and how to fix it, and you've got a deal. I'll back out.'

Jeff watched Booth silently from the passenger seat. His face looked perfectly calm, but his knuckles gripping the phone were white.

'I thought you didn't negotiate with terrorists,' Jake said, and for some reason the words felt eerily familiar.

'I'll make an exception,' Booth said. And he meant it. 'I'll back off. I'll… I'll go on holiday for a while.'

'You sound really desperate,' Jake said calmly. Booth's grip got even tighter. 'But that offer's expired. I'm not giving you anything. I've got too much at stake and I don't trust you.'

Booth almost laughed. '_You_ don't trust _me._'

'This is your warning to back off, Seeley. Stop looking for me, or I'll make you regret it.'

Booth closed his eyes but couldn't think what to say. He didn't negotiate, but he'd negotiate for Bones. Who exactly was the target of this threat?

'You feel me looking at you right now? You'd never see it coming. Don't forget who you're dealing with,' said Broadsky, and the line went dead.

Booth heard the engaged tone as the line went dead and he lowered the phone to his side, sort of staring ahead. 'Did you get anything?' he said to Jeff.

'The signal seemed to be coming from nearby,' Jeff relayed, still with the phone with one hand and holding a map in the other. 'But there was something interfering with the signal, like the call was coming from two places at once. They said they couldn't pin it to a location smaller than a three mile radius.'

'Dammit,' Booth said. 'He knew I was here. He said he was watching us…'

_And he's gonna be pissed when he finds out I've taken that magazine_, Booth thought to himself.

'So what do you wanna do, Booth? Are we going to search around here or—'

'No, if he can see us right now then he'll know that we're searching.' Booth looked out the window at the trees and power lines. Broadsky had some high-tech surveillance equipment. He had phoned to tell him to back off. Sticking around right now was going to result and two frustrated FBI agents, and one all-seeing, very ticked-off killer.

Booth put his phone in the console and re-started the engine, Jeff scouring the street around them for any sign of life as they headed on back to the highway.

.

'Here we go, Dr Brennan,' Sweets said, opening the door for her into his office. 'I'm actually quite excited about this—look I've got an easel, and paint palettes and everything, they even gave me a drop sheet for the floor. Would you like to have a go?'

Brennan seemed dazed and unable to really focus. Sweets hadn't held her arm or anything on the way up here, I mean they didn't normally do that, and he didn't want to unbalance her with too much change. But she seemed unsteady on her feet so Sweets grabbed another canvas and brought it over to the couch.

'Have a seat, if you like you can just use the coffee table. Let me get you some paints—'

Brennan fell into the chair, which suddenly seemed very big and empty without Booth, and she picked up the blank canvas. 'What do I have to do?' she asked quietly after staring at it for a few moments.

'There aren't really any rules—just paint whatever you feel like,' said Sweets, bringing over a plastic drop sheet for her lap, paints and water to clean the brushes. 'You can paint an object or a scene, or you can just paint on whatever colours you feel are speaking to you.'

'Colours can't speak,' she said after a moment, dipping her brush into the blue paint.

'Colours are often associated with feelings. Mix a colour that just seems right to you in this moment. Don't over analyse why. Just be impulsive.'

Brennan stared at the blank canvas, feeling like it and the paintbrush were a hundred miles away from her body. She lifted the brush over the canvas and one big fat drop of paint fell and splattered on the fabric. She shuddered. That one tiny drop felt _loud_. Like the sound it made had actually been magnified to thousands of times the volume, and she was just too insulated to have noticed. The whole world was splitting in two from the decibels of that drop of paint. She felt so spaced out, and looked up at Sweets, wondering if he had heard it too.

He was smiling. 'That's a great start,' he said. He looked too happy. Brennan didn't like that. 'Hey, I don't think they've given me all the equipment—I'll be back in a few minutes, I've just got to run down to Supplies and see if they've got the colour charts. I won't be long.'

Brennan looked up at the space where Sweets had just been. She heard to door click shut behind him, and then she stared down at the mark she had made on the canvas. A single, perfect blue splatter. There was something about it. She didn't know what, but that blue splotch _meant_ something. It reminded her of something…

_There was a dripping noise. About every four seconds, another drop would fall. There were other sounds, scuttling and scratching, and there was that smell… it was so strong she could taste it. Then she realised she __was__ tasting it. It was blood._

_Her head was suddenly pounding. It was full to bursting, her pulse throbbed loudly in her ears. She could see the floor above her, or really below her, and a pool of red was slowly spreading and seeping into the dirt floor._

'_Hullo! I thought you'd forgotten us,' said a strangely familiar voice._

'_Well I didn't go to all this trouble for nothing. You are not a man whose confidences I would like to break.'_

'_Hah. Yes, it might come at the expense of your own head! Hah. I joke, I joke. But you are here now and that it what matters. Are you clean?'_

'_Yes, I used the detector on my car. I wasn't followed.'_

'_Good. Do you have the key?'_

'_Of course I do. Here, take it, please. I would much rather you have it than me.'_

'_Ah, thank you… yes, I can see it is the right one. This will provide us with exactly what we need.'_

'_How is your hostage?'_

'_Oh she's very comfortable—hmm. She looks a little too awake. Excuse me for a moment…'_

_There was a searing pain, and she called out for someone, and everything went black._

'Booth!'

Brennan gripped the coffee table, feeling as though she had fallen over. The world was no longer upside down, but she was alone in a room. And Booth wasn't here. All she knew was that she had to get out. This was her chance to escape.

She made her way over to the door, and opened it a crack. There was no one in the hallway. She slid outside, pushing the door closed with a soft click, and stared down the hall to get her bearings. There was a small kitchen on her left, and she slipped in there to steal some food. She couldn't remember the last time she ate. There was a loaf of bread on the counter, and she took out a slice. The she saw the cabinet.

There was a first aid kit. She needed that. She pulled it down, and opened the lid.

There were lots of bandages, band-aids, antiseptics and pills. She made a grab for the pills. She didn't know why, but she suddenly needed them. She'd just felt so sick. It had been too long since her last dose. If she took them, the sickness and jittering would go away.

Forgetting the bread she slipped two bottles into her pocket and made for the stairs. She didn't want to take the elevator. Elevators were full of people, and she didn't want anyone to find her. She had to move fast. Once they saw that she was down from the ropes, they would sound an alarm, and she was certain that this time they would kill her. She sort of wanted that. There had been so much pain—searing, splitting, aching, enough to make her cry and scream, and then enough to take her beyond making any sound.

She disappeared into the stair well, and started running down the stairs. She felt shaky, like she was going to fall any moment, but she couldn't bring herself to care. She'd felt worse pain than skinned knees or broken bones. She just wanted to get out.

Four floors down, and she was feeling very dizzy. She stopped and opened one of the jars of pills. She grabbed a few tablets and swallowed them dry. _It'll stop feeling dizzy_, she thought. _I just need to get out and I'll be safe_.

Down six more flights of stairs, and she was almost too dizzy to stand. She crouched down on her hands and knees and pressed her forehead into the coolness of the cement. The jolt of cold was enough to wake her up a little. After a minute or so, she thought she could get up. She opened the door into the hallway.

It was the ground floor. People were walking past, talking and laughing, not paying more than cursory attention to the woman coming out of the stairwell. Trying to look confident, she strode out into the walkway and out the=rough the front doors.

It had been easy. She smiled- she'd been dreaming of freedom, and here she was. But she couldn't rest now, not when they'd be coming after her at any moment. She had to move.

She made her way across the street, barely checking for traffic and more than one car slammed on the brakes with loud screeches. People were yelling for some reason- she didn't stop to turn around, but started to run.

.

A/N Going back to earlier in the chapter… do you guys want to see more of Slinky the snake? He could get up to all sorts of mischief :o)

Also—next chapter, an appearance from a character we haven't seen yet, betcha can't guess who! :o)


	48. Chapter 48

Sweets came back up the elevator onto his floor, carrying an armful of bright-coloured charts. He was pretty impressed that he'd managed to get it all up in one trip. It was seriously tricky to push the elevator buttons with a 'Happy Yellow' printout right in your face. Sweets didn't think he'd be associating yellow so much with happiness after this.

He got to his door and gave up trying to hold everything and open the door at the same time. He dropped most of it on the floor outside and swung open the door.

'I've got some charts on the colour blue Dr Brennan, it's associated with peaceful—' He trailed off. Her head wasn't poking up from in front of the couch where he'd left her. He walked into the middle of the room and turned around to see the room from every possible angle. It was starkly clear that she wasn't there.

'Oh crap.'

.

Brennan ran and ran, drawing curious stares from pedestrians as she went. She looked over her shoulder a few times. No one she could see—but not seeing wasn't the same as no one being there. She looked ahead and kept running.

She had no idea where she was, or where she wanted to go. She just had to get as far away as possible.

It was late afternoon, an hour or two before sunset. The streets were swarming with cars and taxis, everyone trying to beat the five-o-clock rush. Brennan felt like everyone was watching her— like every cab carried someone with a knife or a gun, and any of the people on the footpath could grab her and stuff a ball of cloth in her mouth to stop her scream.

There was a big intersection up ahead and on the opposite corner was a park. There might be fewer people in there, and there were lots of places she could hide—big trees, masses of undergrowth and bushes, winding pathways. She made for it and got to the corner just as the light for pedestrians turned green.

She shoved a couple of people out of her way, oblivious to their indignant '_Hey!_'s and scrambled into the park.

She wasn't running off anything more than adrenaline. She had forgotten to eat the piece of bread from the kitchen, and now she could just about feel her body burning fat and muscle for energy.

She stumbled along the path, an acute sense of weakness and shakiness flooding her body. She reached into her pocket and pulled out one of the bottles of pills and downed a few. Taking these gave her a rush of energy. She needed to keep moving.

She meandered through the park, keeping in the shadows as much as possible, not drawing attention to herself. She spotted a bench not too far away, and made for it. She had to sit down and rest, just for a minute.

The instant her hand touched the wood of the bench she seemed to lose all muscle strength and collapsed. She lay there in the shade, stretching out and breathing heavily. _I should be feeling better by now_, she thought, _I've taken just enough to reduce the cravings, and just enough to give me energy…_ But neither seemed to be working. She groaned with the general pain from her burning muscles. She could feel the sting of too much lactic acid. She wanted water, but she didn't have any, and it was just too hard to get up again and go looking for a tap. She laid her head back and closed her eyes. Just for a moment.

'Temperance?'

.

Booth crawled through the traffic on the way back, not really having a valid excuse to use the siren. Jeff talked to Agent Shaw and her team as they tried again to run the coordinates from Broadsky's phone. 'He's found a way to get around it,' Jeff repeated to Booth. 'She doesn't know how. She's really sorry.'

'Tell her it's okay,' said Booth, changing left into a lane where the cars were actually moving. 'He's had Kraus and McCullough to help him out… He knew we had that technology, he's just a step ahead.'

Jeff passed this on to Shaw. Finally the Hoover was in sight. The SUV inched along the road til Booth could finally pull into the car park.

Something had been playing in the back of his mind—something Broadsky had said, but he just couldn't identify what. He'd sensed a connection.

What he really wanted to do right now was go interrogate Kraus again. Broadsky was planning something, and whether or not Kraus knew about it, he still had a lot of information he wasn't sharing. The anger stoked in him by that conversation with Broadsky needed an outlet.

He and Jeff walked up the steps and into the Hoover. 'Thanks for today,' Booth said to Jeff as they got into separate elevators—Jeff going up, Booth going down. The dark interrogation room would suit his mood to a tee.

He sat on the chairs outside the room while Kraus was being brought in, and slipped out the magazine. He tore off the plastic and examined it more closely.

It was no 'Guns and Ammo'. Broadsky would probably be up to date on every gun in the market through direct contacts. This publication was obscure, but Booth had a hunch about it. Sure enough, towards the back was an article penned by J. Broadsky.

'Aha,' Booth said out loud. The article was just a review of some fancy equipment for making your own bullets. It wasn't important. What _was_ important, was the fact the Broadsky knew these people. He used his real name. He was probably a guest editor or a freelance writer for them, and they were bound to know something about him, maybe who his firearms dealer was or what equipment he had bought lately.

The door opened and one of the operators motioned to Booth that the suspect was ready. He got up and slipped into the room.

Kraus was now dressed in an orange jumpsuit. He was still in a holding cell at the Hoover, rather than jail because Booth wanted him available for questioning. He wore the same self-satisfied smirk on his face as last time. His hands were cuffed to the chair, although Booth thought that in a fight, he would easily win over this guy. He was pushing fifty, and was slightly scrawny. Although, as a guy who'd spent his life studying thousands of ways to torture and kill, Booth wasn't so keen on getting close to him. He'd probably pull some freaky ninja move like pinching a spot on your neck that would make you unconscious. Though maybe that was just the movies.

'Agent Booth,' Kraus said with a smile. His voice was overly silky. 'So nice to see you. What do you want?'

Booth settled in the chair and leaned forward with his hands on the table. 'Oh, nothing in particular. I'm just in a really pissed off mood so I thought… hey, let's see if I can make your day a bit worse.'

'But it's a pleasure,' Kraus said. 'You've done so well. You've exceeded our expectations.'

'_Your_ expectations.'

'You found me, you found your partner, and still you are going after the rest of them. You are a brave man.'

'Why do you care about them? I thought this was a contract thing, you know, ask no question tell no lies, pay the fee and move on…'

'You think I am a heartless man,' Kraus lamented, putting a hand over his heart. 'I have a deep respect for my associates. One that _you_ would do well to share.'

'Oh what's that, some sort of threat? In case you haven't noticed, _you're_ in custody. You're going to be put away for a very long time, and there's going to be a trial which you will lose. What have you got to be smiling about?'

'_Plenty_, Agent Booth,' he said smiling toothily. 'I have information that you want. I'm not expendable… if you want to know what happened to your partner.'

Booth took a deep breath. He wasn't going to get angry. He wouldn't give this man the satisfaction.

'But then, you don't negotiate with terrorists,' Kraus shrugged, looking with mock-sadness at the floor. 'At least… _most_ terrorists.'

That was when it clicked. That phrase. He had said it to Kraus last time. Broadsky had said it back to him, and now Kraus was repeating it to him again.

'How are you doing it?' Booth asked.

'Doing what?' His eyes were wide, _so_ innocent.

'Communicating,' Booth said. 'However you're doing it, I'm impressed. Not a lot of places to hide an electronic device. Maybe we didn't get you checked over carefully enough…'

At this Kraus began to laugh. He laughed loudly from his belly, and a tear escaped his eye. Booth felt like he was the punchline of some joke.

Booth decided he wasn't going to get anything more out of Kraus today. His phone rang and he pressed ignore. He left the interrogation room and told the operators that he wanted Kraus _fully_ searched, for any electronic device- from a microphone in his teeth to a computer chip in his brain. He wanted it _found_.

The elevator was empty when he stepped in, heading up to Sweets' floor to get Brennan. He didn't want her left without him for too long, he knew that Sweets could get on her nerves at the best of times. He got out his phone- one missed call. He didn't recognise the number. He wondered for an instant if it had been Broadsky again. Even if it had been, Booth really didn't want to talk to him again. To be honest, both of them had made their positions pretty clear. Neither one was budging.

The elevator door opened at Sweets' floor, and Booth almost walked straight into the guy.

'Whoa, Sweets, easy! How's Bones?'

Sweets took a step back to let Booth out. 'I uh… I was just coming to find you. She's gone for a walk.'

'Gone for a walk?' Booth asked with a frown. 'What, to the bathroom or something?'

'Not exactly. Well maybe—I went down to Supplies for like, five minutes to get the colour charts for her, and when I got back—'

'You lost her,' Booth said, feeling anger surge up. 'I didn't know she was going to run off! I've got the whole building looking for her, they're checking all the security cameras—'

Booth strode into Sweets' office just to check for himself. 'Dammit,' he said. He saw the almost-blank canvas, with one small spot of blue paint, and her brush dropped beside it on the plastic sheet.

'Sweets, I want to rip you a new one right now—'

Booth's phone rang again. He looked at the screen, but he didn't recognise the number. 'Booth,' he said, accepting the call.

'Finally, you gotta learn to answer your phone, Seeley. You might wanna get down here.'

.

'Temperance?'

Brennan didn't know at first if someone real had said her name, or if she'd just dreamed it. It was often hard to tell. She scrunched her eyes, as though squeezing the last ounce of sleep out of them would help her feel less exhausted. She looked up. It was Pops.

'Hank?' she asked, pushing up on her elbows, and promptly falling back down. Her muscles were shaking too much to hold her weight.

'What are you doing out here? Where's that grandson of mine, from what I heard he's supposed to be taking care of you.'

'Oh he… I… I don't remember,' she said slowly. Hank was here. In the park. There was no one else coming up to them to grab her—it was just Hank.

She somehow knew she hadn't hallucinated him. He wasn't someone who was likely to turn up in her dreams. Booth, definitely, but not Pops. He was real.

'Where are we?' she asked deliriously.

'Just in the park—you don't know?' Hank asked concernedly. 'Hang on sweetheart, let me get hold of a phone… Hey! Excuse me—could I just borrow—'

Brennan's head began to swim. She suddenly didn't know which way was up or down. She wanted to throw up, but not in front of Hank… not in front of anyone. She just wanted to disappear.

She crawled off the bench and into the garden and suddenly threw up. She wanted to cry at the horrible sensation, but couldn't make any sound. She spat out onto the mulch, trying to purge her mouth of the taste. A minute late Hank was behind her handing her something.

'Have some water, sweetheart, you can keep the bottle. Why that kid doesn't answer his phone, I don't know… You just hang on for me, I'll need to borrow another one...'

Brennan curled up on the grass and rolled onto her side, happy to be hidden by the bench. She felt safe with Hank there—she didn't know exactly why. He was elderly, and wouldn't be able to defend her or himself if it came to that. But irrational as it was, she felt calm.

.

'Pops? Hang on, slow down—where are you? Yeah…. yeah okay… look I'm coming right now. Give the man his phone back Pops, I'll be there in five minutes. Don't go anywhere, just stay with her, okay? Bye.'

Booth stepped into the elevator pointing at Sweets to say 'I'm watching you'. Sweets gave a sigh of relief as the door closed. He needed a coffee really bad.

.

Booth made it down to the carpark in record time and immediately flipped on the siren_. Totally justified this time_. The park Hank had called from was three blocks away. He was there in four minutes, parking on the curb and racing along to the spot Hank had described. Pops spotted him first, waving him over. 'Hey! Thanks so much Pops- where is she?'

Pops indicated to Brennan, curled up on the grass nursing a water bottle.

'Whoa, Bones,' he said, kneeling down. 'Hey, Bones, can you hear me? What happened?'

Brennan stirred and looked up at him. She looked like a startled animal, the look in her eyes… it was desperate. She moved her hand clumsily and grabbed at his knee, only succeeding in pinching the fabric of his jeans between two fingers. She held onto it tight.

'Bones,' Booth tried again. She looked sick. 'Did she just throw up?' Booth asked Pops, putting the pieces together.

'Yeah, she's really not looking too well. She was lying down on that bench over there, Shrimp, I don't know how she got here…'

'She ran,' Booth said, glancing over at the garden bed where she'd vomited. She didn't have anything in her stomach, so it had probably just been bile.

He needed to get her home, but she was shaking so severely he didn't know if he should move her straight away or let her ride it out here for a bit. His phone rang again. 'Booth,' he said quietly into the phone, stroking Brennan's head, hoping it would help her to steady her breaths.

'Booth, it's Sweets—you might want to get her to a hospital.'

'What? Why?'

'I think she's taken some drugs with her. The coffee room's been kinda ransacked. There are two bottles missing…'

'What drugs?' Booth asked, glancing over again at where she'd thrown up. Now that he was looking for it, he could see about a dozen semi-digested while lumps.

'Uh, asprin and paracetamol…'

'Anything else missing?'

'Nothing I can see.'

'Okay great. You call me if you find anything else.' Booth hung up and kept stroking the hair off Brennan's face. 'Bones. I need you to talk to me. How are you feeling?'

She didn't answer, except to press her lips together to keep from crying. 'Did you see what happened?' Booth asked Pops.

'I think she's walked or run a long way,' Pops said. 'Lucky thing I was going for a walk here.'

'I'll say,' Booth said, looking at Bones, who was now shivering from the cold air hitting her perspiration. Booth saw a bulge in her pocket. He reached over and pulled out the two bottles. 'Bones did you take some of these?'

'I… I needed… I had to run,' she stuttered. Booth looked at what she'd brought up once more for good measure. The pills were clearly the same as the ones in these containers. She'd already brought up whatever she'd swallowed, so there wasn't really a need to take her to a hospital to pump her stomach. She just needed to go home and have a hot shower. He'd check with Cam once she was home of course, but right now she needed to get cleaned up and into bed.

'Bones, hey look at me- I'm gonna take you home, okay? I'm parked nearby, let's get you up…' She rolled onto her back a little and he lifted her from under her arms, then turned to Pops with her slumped against him. He could feel her silently sobbing. 'Pops, you come home with us. I'll get you a taxi from my place.'

'No no, shrimp, I'll-'

'Please, Pops? I'll just be worrying about you—'

'Oh alright. Where are you parked, I'll open her door.'

Booth fished out his keys and tossed them to Hank. 'Over there, can't miss it. Thanks Pops.'

Hank went on ahead and Booth picked up Brennan, who was definitely not up to walking. They were definitely going to be using the elevator when they got back to his apartment.

Booth had parked in an emergency vehicle parking space, so it was in an ideal location. Hank got the passenger door and Booth helped Bones climb in. She wasn't looking good. Hank got in the back and Booth set off home, feeling quite justified in using the siren.


	49. Chapter 49

It was six o'clock by the time Booth got Brennan and Pops upstairs. He held Brennan upright in the lift, an arm around her waist to keep her up. She seemed to be less in control of her muscles than usual. Booth wanted to know what had happened to make her run away.

Hank unlocked the door and let them in. 'I'm gonna look through your pantry and make us something for dinner,' he announced.

'That sounds great, Pops,' Booth said. He didn't think Brennan would eat much after throwing up but he was starving.

Pops went into the kitchen and Booth took Brennan straight to the shower. She was shivering a lot. He turned on the taps to a decent temperature and leaned her against the wall. 'You okay to get showered? I'll put some clothes inside the door for you.'

Bones nodded, sounding breathless from the effort of walking. 'Yeah.'

'Okay. Call me if you need anything.'

Booth didn't like leaving her in there alone, the way she could barely stand up but he just hoped she'd be okay. He grabbed her pyjamas and laid them inside the door, then went into his room to call Cam.

'Hello?'

'Cam, hey. I've got a question for you…'

'Hi Booth. Okay, shoot.'

'Brennan got hold of some tablets about two hours ago, I've got no idea why, just asprin and paracetamol—she threw up though, I need to know if I should take her in.'

'How much did she ingest?'

'I don't know…'

'See if you can find out. If she emptied everything in her stomach, she might be okay… depends on what she took.'

'Right, okay… I'll get back to you.' He hung up and examined the bottles. They looked new and quite full. He didn't know why she'd taken them, but he had a feeling she was… maybe hallucinating or _something_. She'd never take a lethal dose if she was in her right mind. He just wanted to know what had happened.

A few minutes later Booth was knocking on the door telling her she had five more minutes or he was going to come in and check on her. He didn't want her to fall over and end up unconscious on the floor of the shower. And he needed to ask her questions before she fell asleep.

Three minutes later, she wandered into the bedroom, her old clothes balled up in one arm. 'Here Bones, give me those,' Booth said holding out a hand for them, throwing them into the laundry hamper. 'Let's get you in bed.'

Brennan crawled into bed and curled up, still breathing heavily. Booth sat down beside her. 'Bones, I need you to stay awake for a couple of minutes, okay? I need you to tell me about the tablets.'

Brennan curled in on herself more. Booth got the bottles out and showed her. 'Do you remember how many you took?'

Bones stared blearily at them and shut her eyes tightly, a tear leaking out onto the bridge of her nose.

_She knows she was forced to take drugs,_ Booth thought. _She remembers_. 'Bones, just try and tell me what happenedI. Then I'll let you go to sleep.'

'I… I had to run,' she said. 'I needed them. I had to go fast…'

_Oh. She thought they were amphetamines_. 'How many did you take?'

'Um… I think about two,' she said quietly, sniffing loudly. Booth passed her a tissue. 'And the other one… about four, I had to stop being shaky…'

'Are you sure? Bones, you could be very sick if you took too many, I need you to be sure.'

'I didn't take too many,' she said sleepily. 'I don't like them. I had… I had to, to escape…'

'Okay,' Booth said. She wouldn't lie to him, he knew that. 'That's good, Bones. You just go to sleep now, okay?'

She nodded and snuggled into the sheet and pillow. Booth sat with her for a while until her breathing evened out and he was sure she was asleep. He went into the living room and gave Cam a quick call.

'Dinner in five,' said Pops. Booth grinned and gave him the thumbs up.

'Cam,' she answered on the other end.

'Hey, Booth again- She said six all up.'

'What strength?'

'Just normal.'

'How many did she bring up?'

'About that. They'd have been in her system for anything from an hour, to ten minutes.'

'I'd say closer to ten minutes if you could see them. Looks like you got lucky. Did she say what happened?'

'No, I'll try and find out tomorrow. Thanks Cam.'

'Give her a hug from me.'

'Will do. I'll see you later.'

They hung up and Pops brought grilled cheese sandwiches over to the table.

'Ha ha, awesome,' Booth said. 'No one makes these like you, Pops.'

'Well like your grandma used to say, there's the secret ingredient, you've gotta put in love.'

'Then love tastes pretty good,' said Booth, taking a bite.

Hank just smiled into his drink.

.

'So I'll see you in a couple of weeks, okay? Soon as Parker's back at home, I'll bring him over on my weekend.'

'Okay, okay, I'll go,' Hank joked. 'You say goodbye to Temperance for me. I hope you two are getting things sorted out, I'm not getting any younger and I'd love another great-grandchild.'

'I'll keep that in mind,' said Booth, closing the door of the taxi. Hank wound down the window as he gave the driver the address.

'See you later, Shrimp,' said Hank as the cab started up.

'See you Pops. You're always welcome round here, you know that.'

'I know. Bye,' Hank said. Booth stayed out on the kerb until the cab was out of sight before heading back inside.

He was trying to figure out what had got into Bones. Her behaviour seemed out of character, under normal circumstances, but he could sense that she had a reason for running away.

She wasn't on any hallucinogens, but he remembered when she'd been at the lab with Angela, and had a flashback. A flashback seemed the most likely scenario. It seemed the more lucid she got, the more of her captivity she remembered.

The practical downside was that this could happen at any time, and unless he was there with her to help her out of it, something like this could happen again, putting herself in danger or simply getting lost… He didn't want to have to keep her under lock and key. That was a horrible thought. But with Broadsky and McCullough still out there, he was going to have to plan ahead on how to keep her safe.

She was sleeping soundly when he went in to check on her. In her sleep she looked so peaceful. He sat on the bed beside her and read aloud a bit more out of the book of world records, hoping that somehow the sound of his voice would keep her from nightmares.

.

The next day was Thursday, and as much as Booth wanted to get going on the case, Bones was so shaky and unsure of herself he didn't want to leave her. Or take her back to the Hoover- not if it was something there that had distressed her. Not today.

Booth was flipping through the newspaper when Brennan came out. She hadn't brushed her hair, and looked like she'd been trying not to cry, not entirely succeeding. Booth went over to the couch and sat down, taking her hand and pulling her down next to him. 'Do you want to try and tell me what happened?' he asked.

Bones tilted her head to one side, like she was trying to see the coffee table in a new way. 'I, I…. I… I don't know,' was all she got out.

Booth wrapped an arm around her since she was clearly struggling to keep herself together. 'You're allowed to cry, you know Bones. I'm not going to tell anyone.'

This got a small breath of laughter and a smile. She curled up towards him, putting her head on his shoulder.

'What do you say we watch… hang on, check it out, I had this delivered… it's a documentary on dolphins,' he said, picking up a new dvd from the table.

'Yeah,' Brennan said softly. Booth got up and put it in, then sat down and pulled her back across his lap to watch the movie. He had the bio oil on the table too, so he spent the movie rubbing it into her arms and face. The combination of touch, Booth and the dolphins was doing a great job of calming her down. He could feel her breaths and pulse. She was entranced, just like he'd hoped she would be by the graceful mammals gliding through the water.

The documentary was an hour and a half long, and Brennan was almost asleep in his lap by the end of it. The muscle shaking had all but stopped. Booth rolled her over onto her back to look up at him. 'Hey,' he smiled.

Bones smiled back. 'Hi.'

_Smile, check. Talking, check_. 'Bones, I know you don't want to think about it, but I really need to know what happened yesterday. You weren't safe. I can't let that happen to you again.'

Bones withered a little in his lap. He rubbed along her arms to reassure her. 'Bones, I'm not mad at you,' he clarified. 'I love you, and none of this is your fault. I just need to keep you safe, okay? I can't let anything more happen to you.'

Brennan gazed up at him, feeling pretty safe right now. 'I um, I saw things,' she said.

'In Sweets'office?'

'Yes. No. I don't know…. I guess it must have been.'

'Did you think you were somewhere else?'

'I was tied up,' she said, trying to remember what she'd seen. 'I had… blood was dripping out of my mouth. I could hear people talking...'

'And you had to get away,' Booth guessed.

She nodded. 'I found I wasn't tied up anymore, so… I had to run…'

'Okay. That's good, Bones.'

Neither of them spoke for a moment. 'It wasn't real,' she said at last.

'You had a flashback,' he said, running his thumb across her cheek. She looked relaxed now.

'I saw blood,' she said, 'or I thought I did. I… could taste it, in my mouth. And I was tied up, hanging from something… upside-down.'

'Oh Bones.'

'I… I was held up by my feet, and my head was pounding, and everything _hurt_…'

'Bones,' Booth said softly, cupping her head as she spoke. He was just glad she was talking, sharing this with him. He wanted to share the burden, so she wouldn't have to carry it alone.

'They were… they were talking about a key,' she said dreamily, her eyes screwed up a little, like she was trying to see a shadow through frosted glass.

'A key,' Booth repeated.

'Yeah… they were looking for something, something they wanted to… to find…'

'Who was?' Booth asked. He wondered if this was a real memory or just a dream. Bones didn't say anything, just turned her face into Booth's shirt and sighed into the fabric. 'Okay,' Booth said, 'that's okay. It's okay. It's going to be alright, we're going to be okay.'

Bones nodded, her eyes shut, just breathing in the familiar scent. After yesterday, it was nice to just lose herself in Booth, not having to worry about anyone coming to hurt her- not having anything to worry about at all. She could just sleep, and know he'd be here when she woke up.


	50. Chapter 50

Booth watched a few games on tv that afternoon, Brennan sleeping next to him on the couch. He tried to cheer _softly_, but the general ambient noise of the sports stadium was actually quite easy to sleep through. He had moved them around so he had her feet on his lap rather than her head, which would be pretty disruptive every time he got up to for a beer or some food, or his laptop or the bathroom… Booth had given her a shirt of his as a blanket, since he knew she found his scent comforting. He couldn't get over how fragile and vulnerable she was much of the time living with him. He was definitely looking forward to the time when she was his fire-spitting, bull-in-a-china shop Bones again. He couldn't wait to have her beside him chasing down the bad guys. And if these particular three were included in that number, he'd pay to see her kicking the crap out of them. The thought of it made him chuckle. It was a wonder she hadn't got herself killed already in the course of their partnership, the way she'd storm into a situation without thinking twice. It usually made his job more stressful trying to put the reins on her. She usually just ignored him.

.

Over the next week, Booth decided it was kind of nice to have some days off, to just sit at home watching sport and looking after Bones. She slept a lot, and wasn't hungry but would contentedly sip at soup or juice if Booth pressed her. Sweets told him those kind of things were to be expected for a few days after her flash-back and panic attack.

Brennan flipped through the world-records book a few times, seeming to like the familiarity of it, but didn't seem to feel like actually _reading_ much. Booth had got a few anthropology journals from her apartment, and though they weren't the easiest to follow, if you didn't have a degree in the discipline, Bones always relaxed when he pulled one out.

He called Sweets a couple of times to ask for a bit of advice. Sweets was keen to get in Booth's good books again after losing Brennan. In a way Booth was doing the same things he'd done when he first brought her home—helping her stay calm or happy, and feeling safe, rather than being hyper-vigilant, which Sweets said was one of the big things that would slow down her recovery. She needed to reduce the stress her mind and body were put under. And it seemed, sometimes, she couldn't get enough rest.

'She's still Brennan,' Sweets reminded Booth three days later. She'd slept for twelve hours straight, then watched a movie and went back to sleep again.

'She isn't acting like herself yet. It's been six weeks. I mean, I don't mind, I like having her here but if she doesn't start improving soon, I think she's going to wonder if she ever will…'

'You have experience with torture, Booth. Sustained traumatic experiences can scar a victim for life, I hope that isn't the case with Brennan but she's not going to recover overnight. And you've told me she's improving in a few different areas. Remember when you found her, she was catatonic.'

Booth sighed into the handset. Bones was sleeping in the bedroom, sprawled out on her stomach and clutching a pillow. 'I remember,' he said. He didn't think he'd ever forget.

'From what her doctors at the hospital told me, she's always shown the most improvement around you. She needs the safety of the friendship you have with her. She's responding to you, and that's the best scenario she could be in at this stage.'

'What, as opposed to being locked in a padded room.'

'Don't sell yourself short, Booth. It just takes time. I know it's frustrating but that's just the nature of situations like this. Whatever you're doing seems to be working.'

Booth let out a long breath through his nostrils, gazing into the other room at Brennan. 'I just… I'm guessing here. I'm going off instinct, but sometimes that's not enough.'

'Are you saying you want her to start getting external treatment?'

'I dunno. Yes. Maybe. I think. Is that a good idea?'

'It depends on her, whether she wants to or not.'

'She's remembering more. I mean, I'm _assuming_ they're memories. She was under a lot of drugs, separating fact from fiction is going to be near impossible.'

'You want her to remember more.'

'Well yeah. Or no, maybe no. It would be great to know more about these guys, she could be the key to bringing them in. But see she had two flashbacks, and remembered things, and... it's good to know what happened, but _getting_ her to the point where she can remember… is… it's really… not fun for her. I promised her no one is going give her drugs or mess with her to bring back memories. I don't know if she could handle it.'

'I agree, it could slow down her progress,' said Sweets. 'Or even reverse it, if she's forced to think about things before she's ready. I mean each time she's had a memory come back, her recovery's gone backwards.'

'What we need to focus on, we need to bring those men in. McCullough. And we've got to make them talk. Maybe we can torture _them_…'

Sweets laughed with slight unease because Booth actually sounded pretty serious about that. 'Well yeah, having him in custody would certainly help, even if all it does is get him off the street. How are you going to find him?'

_Find Victor McCullough_, Booth thought. _Man of mystery_. Booth knew for sure this guy was a main player because Bones had a seizure from looking at his photo. But he was a bloody disappearing act. 'Don't know.'

'I've got his file here—'

'Yeah I've got it too. MKULTRA, neo-Nazism in Germany and Russia, Project Bluebird and Operation Paperclip. Don't mention this to Hodgins.'

'I think the really scary thing is that he's fallen off the radar for the last twenty years,' Sweets said, 'like, entirely. I mean to me that says whatever he was involved with, was too far underground for anyone to find him. He's not likely to be sitting at home knitting and drinking tea.'

'It feels like I'm chasing a ghost,' Booth said, rubbing his face with his hand.

'Yeah, a really scary, full-on freaky ghost.'

'How old are you Sweets?'

'I'm twenty f—are you paying me out again?'

'Nah, I'd never pay you out, Sweets. Bones would,' he added fairly. 'Okay, maybe me too.'

'Right.'

'Listen, you have a think about Bones, come up with any ideas and you get back to me.'

'Sure, anything to help.'

'Nothing intrusive. I don't want anyone to force memories out of her if she's not ready…'

'Totally. I'll see what I can come up with.'

'That'd be great. Thanks Sweets.'

'Sure.'

They ended the call, and Booth gazed again at Brennan. It was eleven-thirty on a Wednesday, and she was just waking up.

Brennan blinked her eyes open and found her attention drawn to Booth, who was standing in the doorway. 'Oh was I asleep?' she murmured.

'Yeah, you've been right out of it,' Booth smiled at her. He always smiled. It was a bit annoying, thought Brennan, it was kind of dumb to be happy all the time. But then it wasn't really happiness that made him do it. He was doing it for her.

'Booth?'

'Yeah.'

'Things are… okay, right?'

Booth looked surprised. 'Hey, yeah, of course things are okay. You mean with us?'

'No, I… don't know,' she said, sitting up.

'Hey Bones, look. I know you're frustrated with being at home all the time, not being out there doing all the stuff you did before. I mean things are moving slowly right now, but it's going to pick up, okay? Sometimes it's okay to just go slow.'

Brennan swiped at her eye and felt moisture on her hand. She didn't even know she was producing tears. It felt so silly. 'I just… I want to be back at work, and doing what I did before. Solving cases, being at the lab…'

'Well that's a good sign, that you feel that way. It means you're getting through this. If you didn't feel that way, it would be okay too but this just means you're feeling more like your old self.'

'I don't, I don't know if I was back at the lab right now I would handle it,' she confessed. 'But I want to be doing that anyway. It doesn't make a lot of sense.'

'Sure it does Bones. Conflicting feelings, they're normal, especially when things are complicated. The last few weeks you've just been going with the flow. When you start to get better it can feel a little weird.'

Brennan looked at Booth for a moment. 'You've been through this too.'

Booth shrugged. 'Well not to the extent you have. But yeah, I've gone through things.'

'In the army,' Bones said.

'Yeah, in the army. And a little bit in this job too.'

There was silence between them for a minute. Completely unexpected, Brennan suddenly felt overwhelmed with compassion for Booth, for whatever had happened. She wasn't used to being flooded with waves of emotion like this, especially when they sneaked up on her, just hit out of nowhere. Booth watched her with a tiny smile on his face. She wore her heart on her face, Bones, and he could tell what she was feeling sometimes before she could.

'But hey, Bones—I was thinking, today we should do something fun, don't you think? Cos we've been cooped up indoors for ages, you must be aching for some sunshine. How do you feel about checking out the zoo?'

Brennan pondered the idea. Animals. It sounded relaxing. 'Yeah, that sounds like fun.'

'Great. Okay, well I'm gonna go make sandwiches, how about we leave in forty-five?'

'Sure.' Brennan got up and grabbed her jeans and a top, and headed into the bathroom.

Booth whistled as he made them salad sandwiches, figuring Bones would like to go healthy and if he had one too he could totally make her laugh.

'What are you smiling about?' came Brennan's voice into the kitchen. Booth looked up and presented his handiwork.

'Ta da! Bona fide rabbit food, bon appétit!'

Bones grinned and took the plate he held out. 'Wow Booth, I'm impressed. How long is this new health kick going to last?'

'Well that depends, how long do I have to live in a hutch and sleep on straw?'

'Ha, so I guess you're saying that, no, not very long.'

'I'm a man, not a rabbit.'

'Oh, I thought you were going to say "a man not a mouse". Or "a chicken".'

'Hey, you got one! And it's mouse. You're picking these up, Bones.'

'Well I do have a steep learning curve.'

'A _disturbingly_ steep learning curve.'

'What's disturbing about it?'

'Mostly the fact that you can beat me at black jack.'

'By banking the cards?'

'Counting cards, yeah and it's not allowed. You can get thrown out of the casino for that.'

'Well you shouldn't be in a casino in the first place, with your past history with gambling. I'd never let you go.'

'Aw, gee Bones, who's feeling romantic today?'

'What?—oh, no, I mean I'd never let you into a casino!' she said looking flustered.

'I know I know, just couldn't resist getting a rise out of you.'

'So you think my steep learning curve is keeping you straight,' Brennan said.

'Well I didn't say _that_…'

'You should keep eating these sandwiches then, or you'll turn into a chicken.'

'Now I'm confused.'

'… oh. You know, I think I'm confused too.'

'Eat your sandwich Bones.'

.

Booth could sense that Bones was up for a bit more today than she had been for quite a while. Although her muscles were shaky, her movements as she ate her sandwich were more deliberate. She was determined to get better and wanted to stretch herself- he could sense it. Well if she needed a challenge, he could give her one. It would be nice to have a taste of how things used to be between them, happily sparring away, just for a little while. It gave the assurance that even though process was slow and stilted, and sometimes went backwards, things would eventually change.

Half an hour later, the SUV was weaving through the light traffic, and Booth was insisting that Brennan wear a hat. Without wearing one himself. He didn't really care about the hat, but the familiar bickering was making him quite happy, and the vibes he was getting off her were that she was liking it too.

'I don't need a hat, it's not that hot!' she protested—more quietly and hesitantly than she would normally, but at least she was speaking her mind. Booth decided to spend today getting as much out of her as possible. And seeing his favourite animals, like the monkeys.

'Yeah, but you're going to be walking around a zoo, with big open spaces, binoculars and looking up at giraffes—'

'I've seen giraffes before, and there are trees. Plus you're only taking sunglasses!'

'Yeah well, your skin is fair. You'll burn easier. Just wear the hat, Bones, please?'

'If I do…. will you eat a salad for dinner?'

Booth groaned melodramatically as he turned off towards the zoo. 'Oh _fine._ You just like to take all the fun out of life.'

'By eating salad? Hats are boring, I didn't want to wear one.'

'Salas and hats, yeah, we are boring. But still. Do you wear a hat when you go on digs?'

'That's different,' she said, trying to access her memories from the many trips she had been on. It was difficult to remember much, somehow, but she was slightly proud of herself for being able to answer the question. 'On digs I'm outside nearly every day.'

'If you wear the hat I'll eat a salad. Compromise,' Booth said.

Bones held her hand out to shake on it. Booth took it and gave a single firm shake. 'Deal.'

'Does it matter how much tomato sauce and bacon I add into this salad?' he asked hopefully.

'_I'm_ going to make it _for_ you,' she informed him.

'Oh man…'

They found a parking space not exactly close to the entrance, but there were a good three or four cars further away so at least, in Booth's mind, they had won. Parker had written him a letter a few weeks ago about this game he and Lacey had invented, which basically consisted of declaring yourself to 'win' at things. Like, if you're first at the dinner table, you win. If you get the last piece of cake, you win. If you look at the clock and it's exactly something-and-zero seconds you win. If you have exact change paying for something, you win. Parker had filled up a whole two pages of things to win at. Booth had never seen his son coming up with so many things to amuse himself. Obviously forced confinement was making him more resourceful.

'Why are you laughing?' Bones asked as they made their way across the giant carpark.

'Oh.' Booth hadn't realised he was. 'I was just thinking about Parker. You know the last time I came to the zoo Parker was four. His favourite animals were the pigeons.'

'But pigeons are everywhere,' Brennan said confused. 'Wouldn't he like the lions more? Or the gorillas? – they are really magnificent!'

'That's what makes it funny,' Booth explained. 'Kids, sometimes, I mean you buy them an expensive toy but they have more fun playing with the cardboard box it came in, pretending it's a racing car or a spaceship.'

'Oh. Well then you might as well have given him just a cardboard box.'

'I know,' Booth grinned as they got in line for tickets. 'Put your hat on, Bones.'

Bones looped her arm through his and pulled it on over her ponytail.

'Two adults… yeah, on card… great thanks.' Booth handed Brennan her ticket, then caught her hand and made a beeline for the monkeys, dragging her along behind.

'Booth! The monkeys are right at the far end of the zoo, look at the sign!' she laughed.

'Yeah well, sometimes you should just get straight to the good stuff,' he said.

Brennan gripped his hand tighter as he charged toward the monkeys. 'Booth! can you slow down?'

'…I mean you never know what's going to happen next, right?—what?' He turned around to face her and saw her pointing at a sign that read "Dolphins". Well since they were her favourite animal, that would definitely fall under the heading of "getting straight to the good stuff". She was looking hopefully at him, then back at the sign.

'Ah, you're a quick learner,' he grinned. 'But you knew that.'

Staring at him, Brennan began to say that of course she knew that, but looking at that brilliant smile of his she couldn't quite get the words out.

They were suddenly having a moment. Out of the blue- one minute they were comfortably bickering, the next he was being drawn in by those expressive blue eyes. What made it all the worse, he thought, was the fact that she had no idea she was doing it. It was completely honest and artless. Even though she had confessed she was in love with him, she didn't need to say so. It was written clearly on her face. Booth reached over and tugged her hat down a little more securely over her forehead. 'Don't want that to blow off, you know, in the wind,' he said, mainly to distract himself. 'Hey—do you want ice cream?'

'What?' Bones asked, literally not having heard what he said.

'Ice cream, uh… there's a cart right over there, see?'

'Oh,' said Bones, looking behind her. 'Uh, sure…'

'Cos I am gonna have a peppermint choc-chip, two scoops,' Booth said quickly. Maybe if he stuffed his face with ice-cream he'd forget about those eyes. Why was this suddenly an issue?

'Oh,' Bones said again. 'I don't, I don't know… what I want…'

_I do_ Booth thought. _Shut up shut up!_

'You should definitely get rainbow. It's the most magical flavour.'

'Why? What does magic have to do with ice cream?'

'Well it's on the label,' Booth pointed out. '"Magical rainbow," with _four_ colours instead of three, that's pretty cool.'

'It is pretty,' Brennan said softly, eyes fixed on the blue, pink, orange and yellow swirls. She was relieved she didn't have to choose the flavour herself. She was out of her comfort zone today, and she didn't think she could handle the stress of choosing an ice-cream flavour, as ridiculous as it seemed. She didn't want to lose her cool, and she didn't want to lose it in front of Booth. She wanted to be stronger than this, because she wanted him to know what it meant that he was doing this for her. She wanted to be better for him.

Suddenly the pressure of all this was too much, and she needed to hold onto Booth. He handed her a rainbow cone, and she slipped her arm around his elbow, leaving him to balance his two scoops in his left hand. 'Ha, this is going to be tricky,' he said amiably, taking a big lick of his ice cream. Brennan carefully took a bite of hers, trying not to get any of it on her face. It seemed strangely harder because she only had one hand.

'It does taste kind of magical,' she said as they headed toward the marine-life section of the park.

.

They wandered through a sort of tunnel, with water above and all around as if they were in a giant glass bubble. There were starfish, sea cucumbers, dozens of types of coral, angel fish, and even a small tank with some cute little sea horses. Brennan watched the sea horses for ages, watching them move around in the water. Booth watched her reflection in the glass and she didn't seem to notice. But she looked peaceful and contented, and Booth stood with her until she finally said she was done. It was sort of romantic, this tunnel with rippling light and colour in every direction. The tunnel seemed to be air conditioned, although it was probably just cooler because of the mass of cold water above it. You could almost feel the salt water on your skin if you closed your eyes. You could definitely imagine the invisible barriers melting away, and being drowned in a literal sea of life. But it was almost a pleasant kind of fear, the kind of magic that would only happen in a fairytale—if the tunnel gave way, you'd probably turn into a mermaid and the water would no longer be a tank at the zoo but the Pacific Ocean or the Coral Sea.

Booth wondered if Brennan was being relaxed by the vibe. She probably was. She'd gone diving on a case, once, to rescue a human skull out of a tank, and it had scared the hell out of Booth. He kept bugging her on the head-set every five seconds asking if she could still breathe.

'We have to go look at the dolphins now,' said Bones, and Booth found himself staring into her fathomless eyes yet again. _Dammit_.

'Okay, lead the way Bones.'

Her hand still looped through his arm, she led him out the other side of the tunnel and up a sloped pathway, where you could see the enormous tank from another spot. 'They're supposed to be in there,' she said, scanning the water for them.

'Let's go up the top, I think that's where I saw them last time,' Booth said. 'Although that was like, eight years ago—whoa! This is new!'

There was a large pool— enormous actually. It seemed to stretch almost to the far side of the zoo. It was like a river in the park. 'I don't know if this is cruel,' Brennan said softly.

'Keeping dolphins?'

She nodded. A sign read that while dolphin shows and training was deemed to be unkind to these beautiful mammals, a number of injured dolphins caught in fishing nets had been rescued and relocated to the zoo, in an environment that mimicked their natural habitat as closely as possible. There was a donation box going towards protecting them in the wild, and at Brennan's face as she read the information sign, Booth slipped a couple of notes in. She smiled at him happily and kept walking up to a vantage point along the enclosure

'I'd love to see them in the wild,' she said softly as they gazed into the water looking for a glimpse of a dolphin. 'I know dolphins are one of the most intelligent mammals in the animal kingdom, and I think they would feel happier in the sea.'

_Man_. Booth hadn't meant for this zoo trip to be sad. 'Well why don't you do some research on it when you're feeling up to it. You could probably afford to buy them and get them sent back into the wild,' he said, only partly joking.

'I don't know for sure that they would survive, if they've been hand-fed for most of their lives…'

'Hey, Bones, look. There's a baby one.' She looked over where he was pointing.

'Oh wow!' she breathed, transfixed by it. An adult swam up behind it and circled around the baby playfully.

'They can't be too unhappy if they're breeding,' Booth pointed out.

'I'd still like to do some research,' she said quietly. 'But they're so beautiful.'

'Look, Bones, zoos have changed a lot since the old days,' Booth said as they wandered on through the park. 'Enclosures are larger, zoo keepers are better trained, they're strong on conservation and public awareness. For a lot of these animals, they've either been, you know, bred here cos they're endangered, or injured animals who've been rescued. So just, don't get all upset about it, not today, okay? Today just enjoy. You can go on a crusade tomorrow.'

This actually got a smile out of Brennan, as wistful as she was feeling. _He has a point,_ she figured. Being upset today isn't going to do any good.

'I'll just have to choose to be happy today,' she said.

'That's my girl.'

'I'm not a girl.'

'You're eating a rainbow ice cream, staring at dolphins and sea horses. That's the definition of a girl.'

'Then I'm going to have to call you a boy, because we are clearly heading back towards the monkey exhibit.'

'You can call me whatever you want if you let me take a monkey home.'

'What? I can't—'

'I know, I'm kidding, Bones.'

'Oh. Ha, okay. I sort of knew that.'

'Of course you did.'

.

By the time the park closed, and the sunset was giving way to evening, and the streetlamps around the park lit up to join the stars. Brennan was gazing at the tigers, the last exhibit they would see that day. Booth had wrapped her up first in a jacket and then in is arms, and he reluctantly drew her away from the gorgeous animals and towards the gates.

'I don't know why, but I feel a lot better than I did thismorning,' she said, glancing up at him.

'Well, checking out God's amazing creation can do that,' he smiled. Brennan tried to burrow a little closer, but it wasn't really going to work while they were walking.

The car park was a lot emptier than when they arrived. Brennan hadn't really wanted to leave. There was something soothing about animals that she loved—their beauty and simplicity. It was much easier to understand a dog or a giraffe than a human being. They liked freedom, and food, and company, and sleep. Brennan sort of wished everyone could be simple like that.

'We're having pizza for dinner, by the way,' Booth said, pulling her close as they stopped to unlock the car. Brennan didn't point out he'd already promised to eat salad, but it didn't matter because it wasn't really _about_ the salad. He thought he'd compromise by eating a lettuce leaf so he didn't feel too bad. Plus, there were veges on a pizza. Like mushrooms, and tomato paste. They totally count.

Brennan gazed out the window at the stars most of the drive home. Booth called their closest pizza shop so they could swing by and pick it up on the way home. On speakerphone, of course— he didn't think Bones was in the right place just at the moment to feel like ordering for them, and at the moment he felt compelled to drive super-safely, as if any bad habits on the road would somehow put her in more danger. By the time they got home the moon was out, shining brightly and lighting up the clouds around it. Bones kept gazing at it until they got inside.

'Did you see your favourite constellation?' he asked as they got into the lift.

'Delphinius? Part of it. There were clouds in the way,' she said softly.

Booth could get a pretty clear sense of her mood right now. She was leaning into him a lot, and looked sleepy. She probably wouldn't eat much and would want to do something familiar like watch the whale movie or read the world records book. It was weird, he thought that he knew her so well like this. But then again, they were practically a family, the two of them, and it wasn't weird at all.

Bones got tireder by the step as they made it into the apartment, and instead of going to the couch or the bed she stayed right beside Booth, still holding onto his arm. 'This…' she started to say.

'What?' he encouraged.

'This is going to change,' she said, and apprehension was clear in her voice,

'What's going to change, Bones?'

'_This_. Us… I'm going to be home, and you're going to be here…'

'Well one day, yeah,' he said. 'That's a good thing, Bones. You're getting better every day, you know that?'

She nodded fractionally.

'I know it's taking a while, but you'll get to the point where you don't need me. You will, I promise. You've been doing so well.'

Bones nodded and he didn't notice, but she was suddenly ridiculously scared. _I don't want him to see_, she thought desperately. 'I'm going to go take a shower,' she quickly said, and slipped into the bathroom with her pyjamas while Booth made his way through the pizza. Brennan couldn't help but cry in the shower and once she was out went straight to sleep to make sure he didn't notice.

.

**.**

**.**

**A/N So there are some changes going on with Brennan…. hmmm. Also I totally have to shout out to Allie from her 'Hyperbole and a Half' blog, cos I totally got the 'win' game from there. Free ad. **


	51. Chapter 51

Friday morning, Booth was determined to get back to the Hoover to continue on the case. He and Bones had both needed the time out this last week. He had to remind himself this was a marathon, not a sprint and if they didn't pace themselves they were going to lose.

He wasn't sure whether to bring Brennan in with him or drop her off at the lab, he'd let her decide what she wanted to do. She'd been really tired last night, she'd gotten into bed before eight and didn't even say goodnight, which she usually did in some way or other, even if just a look or a gesture. She'd taken the shirt of his from the couch and put it on, though. He wasn't a hundred percent sure what was going on with her, now that she was getting more alert and responsive to the things and people around her. It was to be expected, really, that she'd close down a bit to try and regain control. Booth could feel the tension now, both within her and between them, the way she seemed to be fighting with herself about decisions she made and things she said.

'Bones, you finished in the bathroom?' he called. It had been twenty minutes, and he'd eaten breakfast and read the paper but she was still in there. 'You okay?'

Brennan pressed a wet cloth over her face to cool the redness from crying. 'I'll be out in a minute!' she called. She really didn't know why she was so emotional today. She didn't like it, she was hardly ever like this. But for some reason since talking to Booth last night about eventually going home, she'd been off balance. She wanted to like the idea, she really did—why was it so distressing?

Booth was standing right in front of the door when she opened it. 'Oh,' was all she could say as she almost barrelled into him. 'Thanks,' he said with a bright smile, slipping past her and singing some sort of sports warcry as he brushed his teeth. He figured Bones had to give him some credit for that. Singing while brushing your teeth isn't an easy feat.

Brennan slipped into the kitchen and got herself some toast. She'd made some good progress in the last week with her shaking. Since she couldn't pinpoint a cause, it made it seem that she couldn't do anything about it. Booth said something about 'better the weevil you know than the weevil you don't', or something. It had sounded pretty weird. She liked to have things crystallised, hard and factual. This game of waiting around for things to change, not knowing what was going on was frustrating. It meant she had even less control. Which was why she needed to be near someone she trusted, who, even if she couldn't control her life herself, could at least provide her with shelter and safety until she was ready.

She realised her toast had already popped up and was going cold, so she grabbed it out of the toaster and ate it plain.

'You ready to go?' Booth asked from behind her. She dropped the toast out of surprise.

'Oh,' she breathed looking over her shoulder. 'Um, sure.' She picked up the toast and took one more bite, leaving the rest on the plate and getting up.

'You can finish that if you want, Bones. I'm not going to make you skip breakfast.'

'Oh, no, it's okay. I'm not feeling very hungry today,' she said evenly. Booth looked at her, and when she managed not to flinch under his scrutiny he accepted it and led the way outside.

'Can I drive some time?' she asked quietly as Booth started the engine.

He glanced at her and raised his eyebrows. 'Of course you can, Bones, but I'm not sure that you're ready just yet.'

'Well, I might as well get going early, I mean, if it's going to be hard there's no point putting it off. It will only be harder,' she said very evenly. She thought she'd concealed her whirlwind emotions pretty well.

'It's just driving, Bones. You'll remember as soon as you're behind the wheel. I'm not sure if you're even allowed to drive at the moment, with some of the symptoms you've been having.' He tried to speak as gently as possible. He was getting very mixed vibes from her today, and he had no idea why. It concerned him but if he asked, he knew she wouldn't tell him. _I probably just need to give her space_.

Bones didn't reply, but seemed to almost brood in silence for the rest of the trip. As they got near the Hoover Booth realised he hadn't asked where she wanted to spend the day. 'Would you rather be hanging out at the lab or in my office today?'

_Your office, _she wanted to say._ By a million miles._ 'Uh, I guess the lab. I… could catch up with Angela. And the baby.'

'Okay, great. I'll drop you off. You've got your phone?'

'Oh, uh, yeah.'

'I charged it up for you last night, hope you don't mind.'

For about the sixth time in the last 24 hours, she thought she was going to cry. But she couldn't. Crying wasn't going to make her get better any faster. It wasn't going to convince Booth she was moving forward. She looked out the window and took a deep breath.

'Sorry if you didn't want me to, I know you want to do things yourself,' Booth said kindly, misreading her silence for grumpiness. She gave a sharp gasp and held her breath to keep the tears in. As long as he thought she was in a bad mood, he might give her some space. Space she had to get used to. Lots of empty space.

'I texted Angela thismorning, told her you might be coming in.'

'Okay,' Brennan managed. Just. They were pulling up at the Jeffersonian entrance, the spot where he normally pulled up if he was dropping her off instead of coming in with her.

'You okay to go in? I can always park if you need me to.'

'No, why would I? I'm fine,' she said breezily, even pasting on a fairly convincing smile.

'Okay,' Booth said, possibly a little hurt. Her moods were all over the place today. But this was what he wanted, wasn't it? Her to be getting better. This was exactly how the Brennan he knew would handle recovery from trauma. He wasn't quite sure why it made him uneasy.

Brennan hopped out of the car, heading straight into the building without looking back. Booth waited until the doors had shut behind her to make sure she got in alright, like his Pops had taught him to do when dropping a girl off somewhere. He pulled out into traffic, not entirely sure why he was feeling uneasy and just a little bit bitter. He hadn't once felt annoyed at Brennan in this whole time, but now… now he was annoyed at her callousness. Didn't she care about what he'd been through to get her back? He'd just… thought they had something special going on. And now she was treating him like a hotel valet.

Booth pushed the thoughts out of his head and turned at the lights towards the Hoover.

.

.

**A/N **

**Sorry for the angst! But it's all about balance, I reckon… and there was just a lot of fluff last chapter! Don't worry, someone's going to chat to Brennan next chapter and sort her out :o)**


	52. Chapter 52

Brennan had fought the instinct to look back. She didn't know why she was doing this—she didn't want to be here. She didn't even really want to see Angela—partly because Angela was so nice to her, and she had just shaken off Booth... If she went into the lab, she'd end up breaking down in front of Angela. She just wanted to be in control of herself right now.

She knew where she _didn't_ want to go, but that left her standing around awkwardly in the entrance hall. Maybe she should just go down to bone storage for a while, but somehow even going to the lab was just more than she could handle. She didn't even know why. She just felt all blocked up, emotionally and mentally. She hit the wall with one fist out of frustration.

Maybe she could go to the Jeffersonian gym, and run on a treadmill or punch something. She didn't feel remotely fit right now, but building up muscle mass was something she had to do eventually. And since time was flying by faster than she could process, right now was a pretty good time to start.

She was wearing stretchy yoga pants, since she wasn't exactly going in to work. _Perfect for the gym_. A lift dinged on the ground floor and a few people got out, so Brennan jumped into one and pressed the button for the third floor. When the doors opened she barrelled out and into the gym opposite.

Even though she hadn't really eaten, she felt like burning off some energy. It would give her something concrete to focus on. Moving forwards. The gym was almost empty—the early-morning fitness junkies had come and gone. Some treadmills were free, but she spotted a cycle and went over to that instead. She could at least sit down while she exercised, that would give her some muscle tone without such a cardiac workout. She slung her bag onto the floor and climbed on, set the resistance to low and started to pedal.

There was a tv screen on the wall playing some inane talkshow. Luckily the sound was off, and some supposedly motivational music was on instead. She pedalled while the talk show ended and a long boring infomercial started. When she'd been going for 20 minutes, she got off and went to get a towel and some water.

'Dr Brennan?'

She turned around to see Micah, the night watchman standing behind her. He was still in his uniform—he mustn't have gone home from work yet.

'Oh, hi Micah,' Brennan said. Though it felt a little confronting to be called 'Dr' right now. It just felt too soon.

'I was just dropping off some papers to the gym office, I really should start coming here again,' he smiled, gesturing around them. 'I heard you were safely home. How are you doing?'

Micah had a way of asking personal questions without being intrusive. Brennan liked how easy he was to talk to. She tilted her head thoughtfully, wondering how to respond. 'I'm… I'm well.'

'It's nice to see you around here again. I can't imagine you without the work you do at the lab.'

Brennan smiled. She couldn't imagine Micah without his guard's uniform. 'I don't know when I'll be back there,' she confessed. 'It will probably be soon.'

Micah considered her carefully. 'You don't sound too happy about that,' he commented. 'Don't you want to go back?'

'I do,' she said at once. 'I just… it's been a long time, and I need to get better, and I will, but…' She trailed off.

'What are doing now, until then?'

'Oh. I'm staying with Booth…'

Micah nodded understandingly at this confidence. He suspected that if anyone else had asked her that, they could have got a punch in the nose. 'That sounds pretty perfect,' he commented. 'He's a good guy, Booth.'

'Yeah, he is,' she said quietly, looking down.

Micah straightened his tie. 'You know, not all good things have to come to an end. It can be hard to think about the future, sometimes, but people grow, things move forward… You get to choose. Don't just let life happen to you, Dr. You have to live it.'

Brennan looked up, slightly wide-eyed at this advice. Micah smiled, and after a moment, she smiled back.

'Well— I should leave you to the gym. Maybe I'll see you around sometime soon.'

Brennan tried to say something, but found herself rendered slightly dumb by what he'd said. 'I—yeah,' was all she could get out. Micah seemed to think nothing of this, and raised a hand in goodbye, before turning and walking out the gym doors. Brennan stood there for a good minute, staring after Micah, before she noticed another patron of the gym frowning at her and headed back over to the equipment.

.

Slightly upset after Brennan's mood swings, Booth had dived into the case and was now sitting with Sweets, talking tactics. He'd decided Sweets could shrink them and he could cuff 'em.

'I just want a read on McCullough,' Booth said again, about the third time that morning. 'Kraus is a big player, but McCullough is a total wild card. If I could just get him in the interrogation room, I'd feel a lot better about this. I need to get a sense of him, you know?'

'I agree we need to see him before we can accurately guess what his role was,' Sweets said. 'But finding this guy—I mean, we know finding Broadsky is hard, but McCullough's just plain smart. I mean, I don't know I'd call him a genius, but he's experienced. He knows how to disappear.'

'"We're not going to find him unless he comes to us",' Booth parroted— what Sweets had been saying all morning. 'I know, I know. But we can't just sit here waiting, there have to be other leads. Do you have the results of Kraus' search?' Booth asked.

'Oh, yeah,' Sweets said. 'Here you go—they even x-rayed him.'

Booth took the file and opened it. 'Ah-ha! I knew it. They got a mic/receiver out of his teeth, even I could guess that one. It's straight out of 'Get Smart'.' Booth looked ready to spit fire as he flipped through the pages.

'I can see you really hate him,' Sweets commented.

'Yeah well, the guy tortures defenceless hostages for a living. I'm allowed to hate him. Scum like that should be put away.'

Sweets nodded. 'Fair enough, and I'll help in any way I can. Oh—excuse me—' The phone rang and he picked up. 'Sweets….. yeah… Oh, really? That's – wow….. Yeah he's right here, I'll pass that on… uh yeah, we'll probably come down soon. Thanks.' Sweets ended the call. 'That was the tech department—they've just finished examining that tooth-bug they found on Kraus.'

'Examining it. Did they find something?'

'Yeah. It was pretty hard to crack, took them about a week but it's got data stored in this _tiny_ chip, records of conversations.'

'Conversations, between Kraus and…..'

'Well it doesn't say who, but… we should take a look at the transcripts when we go down. My shrink's gut, it's telling me Broadsky and-or McCullough. They're bringing Kraus up to the interrogation room so we can question him.'

'Come on then,' Booth said, slapping his palm on his leg and jumping up. 'Grab the file, let's go.'

They didn't talk much on the way down. Both were thinking of what this equipment might be able to tell them. The lift stopped on the techs' floor and they made a beeline for the workroom where various tech gadgets and equipment were fixed and examined.

'Dr Sweets, Agent Booth,' said the tech as they came in.

'Hey Rob. What've you got for us?' Sweets said.

'Okay, well this little beauty is totally next-gen. I reckon it's Swedish, there's some manufacturers over there that use this type of plastic. It can almost entirely pass a metal-detector test, because the metal is just a tiny wire, I nearly needed a microscope- and the chip is silicone. And it's all embedded in a false tooth.'

'Ouch. So how did you find it on Kraus then?' Booth asked.

'Extensive searching,' said Rob in an undertone, flinching slightly at the thought. 'I didn't have to do it, thankfully. Rough gig. But we're just about certain we didn't miss anything this time.'

'Ha, there's always brain implants,' joked Sweets.

'Yeah well, with this guy? I wouldn't put it past him. Didn't he inject a time-release drug cap into Dr Brennan?'

'Yeah,' said Booth. He didn't really want to think about Bones right now. 'So, you got some data off the silicone chip?'

'Yes,' said Rob, moving round the table. 'Here it is by the way—tiny,' he said, pointing at a petri dish containing a tiny white spec.

'Wow,' Sweets said, looking at it like it was a magic bean. 'This is up there with the time Cam let me touch a brain.'

'These are the transcripts. It was all in Morse code, looks like the guy's got a soft spot for the classics.'

'How did he get it to work?' Sweets asked as Booth picked up the transcripts.

'It sends tiny shock waves- miniscule electric currents, just enough to make it vibrate so you can feel it in your tooth. My guess is Kraus sent messages by opening and closing his mouth, banging his teeth together.'

'That is so cool,' Sweets effused. 'This is real spy stuff, like CIA. Though, I s'pose McCullough _was_ with the CIA, or at least on friendly terms with them…'

'Look at this,' Booth said as he read the transcripts. '"Doesntnegotiatewithterrorists". I knew there was something up when Broadsky said that same thing to me when we went looking for him. This must have gone to Broadsky...'

Sweets looked over Booth's shoulder at the messages. '"Outbythewall", whatever the hell that means was the first one…'

'I'd say it means he got caught,' Booth guessed, 'it's the first one. Are these outgoing or incoming?'

'All outgoing, far as I can tell,' the tech said. 'The incoming messages were… sort of streamed, as opposed to downloaded.'

'Oh, like a Youtube video,' said Booth.

'Something like that. The only way to find out what was said to him is for Kraus to tell us himself.'

'He'll be just peachy about doing that,' Booth said in an undertone.

'There are only a few messages here, if the first one was saying he got caught… why would he only have used this device since then? I mean, you've got a cell phone in your tooth, you'd want to use the hell out of it for the cool factor.'

'The messages are written over each other. You know like, the old nokia phones, how they could only hold a dozen texts? The chip in this is about 2millimetres square. It holds less data than an MSN display picture.'

'Blast from the past, I thought you said this was next gen.'

'I'd say a prototype,' Rob shrugged. 'It could obviously use some refining—I mean, if you didn't decode the message as the chip vibrated, you wouldn't get a second chance.'

'Well that's the price you pay for a gadget that gets through an FBI search,' Sweets shrugged. 'All of these are in code. "Washingonwednesday", "Eggplant", "Conferencecall". I got nothing, you guys.'

'Then let's go ask him,' Booth said, taking the transcript. 'Can we take the device?'

'Sure,' said Rob, sliding the petri dish into a zip-seal bag for them.

'Good work on all this,' Booth said sincerely to Rob as they headed out to the elevators

'No sweat, this was the most fun I've had at work in weeks.'

The doors slid shut as they descended to the holding floor. 'You think he's going to give us anything?' Booth asked sceptically.

'Kraus? Not really,' Sweets said, looking at his phone. 'But we do have one card up our sleeve—Kraus is being moved to a longer-term holding facility thisafternoon.'

'Really, how come I didn't hear about that?'

'I just got the email on my phone,' he said, holding it up. 'You have it too, you're on the list of recipients.'

'I don't think it'll make much of an impact,' Booth said.

The doors opened on the lowest floor and they went straight to the interrogation room, where Kraus was sitting moodily in orange, his head shaved where they'd gone looking for any more concealed items. Booth clicked the lock open and they went in. 'Mr Kraus,' Booth said. 'Nice to see you again. Hope you're enjoying your stay, using up taxpayers money.'

They pulled up chairs and sat staring across at him. He looked… somewhere between indignant and livid. He kept his mouth firmly shut.

'We have some transcripts here,' Sweets said, laying the page on the table, 'of some outgoing messages, from the time you've been here in custody. Is there… anything you'd like to share with us?'

Booth glared a little at Sweets. _Share with us_. He wasn't gonna go all touchy-feely shrinky, was he?

'I have nothing to add,' Kraus said in his heavy accent. He jerked his hands and the cuffs and chain clunked loudly against his chair.

'Who were you communicating with?' said Booth. Kraus completely ignored him. 'Well, we don't really need you to tell us, Kraus, we already know one of the messages was to Broadsky. We're just giving you the chance to elaborate, you know, before you're shipped out to solitary.'

Kraus' eyes darted up at this. Sweets widened his eyes and glanced at Booth for an instant, silently telling him _nice one_, then focussed on the prisoner. 'Thisafternoon, actually. It could be a while before the trial, so just think of it as a last chance to do a good deed.'

'I cannot betray my associates,' Kraus spat onto the table. He actually did spit—Booth was grossed out to see flecks of saliva reflect the light.

'It isn't going to make any difference, we'll catch them eventually,' Sweets said.

'It's not worth it to me,' Kraus said impassioned. Booth hadn't seen him like this once yet. He seemed genuine for the first time.

'Not worth it. To do the right thing?'

'Not worth my _life_,' Kraus said. 'Men like us, we don't… we cannot betray each other. It is not done. There will be _consequences_.'

'Well if we have you in custody, and we have them in custody, no one's going to hurt you,' Sweets said.

'We do not forgive. We never forgive, never forget. It is not worth it to betray.'

The three of them sat in silence for a minute, staring at each other, Kraus breathing heavily with the stress of this point.

'We can offer—' Booth tried.

'_No._ I will not.'

'You could just say we figured it out…'

'He will know. No betrayal.'

'He,' said Sweets. 'You mean Broadsky, or McCullough?'

'I will say nothing,' Kraus said, sitting up rigidly on the chair to emphasise his point.

Booth slid the zip-lock bag onto the table. 'This is yours. We know how it works. It wouldn't be hard to just… send someone a message.'

Kraus looked like he was going to be sick, eyes fixed on the tooth-mic.

'Oh, come on, you're not even going to help us?' Sweets said, a little exasperated. 'You're a smart man, Yoseph. We can offer you protection. You could cut a deal, reduced sentencing, a better cell in prison. What are you afraid of?'

The man didn't say another word. It was clear that he was not going to budge. He looked away from Sweets, eyeing the transmitter like it was a bomb about to go off.

Booth got up and walked out of the room. Sweets followed.

'He's not going to talk,' Booth said.

'I agree. Well he'll be trucked over around four. Do you… are you going to use the transmitter?'

'Heck yeah,' said Booth. 'Let's get back up to tech.' Booth did consider taking it over to Hodgins and Angela, but Brennan was there and it was just a bit too much to deal with right now. He just wanted to drown himself in the case today. Pissing off some bad guys was going to relieve a lot of stress.

They showed up on the tech floor to find Rob still in the gadget lab. 'Hey, I thought you'd be back. I bet you want to try and use it.'

'Read my mind,' Booth said, handing it to him. 'I want to tell them that Kraus is being moved. If they receive the message, they could show up at the scene.'

'Except we don't know the code,' Sweets said. 'It's all symbolic, I can have a good guess at the meanings but I could also be totally wrong.'

'No code,' said Booth, waving his hand in gesture, 'I don't care if they know it's not Kraus. I want to see if we can track the signal, get a location.'

'Yeah but how do we track the signal?'

'Well I think it's using cell phone towers,' Rob said, 'but honestly we're not going to know until we try. I've got the stuff hooked up here actually, we'll send it off and run the results.'

'Do we know how to work it when it's not in someone's mouth?' asked Sweets. 'Cos like, I'm not putting that in my mouth.'

'Hah, no one has to do that. I can send something, if you tell me what to say,' Rob offered.

'Right. Uh… You know Morse code, right?' said Booth.

'Absolutely.'

'Good. Say… uh… 'moving at four'. Short and sweet.'

'Got it.' Rob held the gadget in place with two fingers and used a weird sort of two-pronged hammer to bang both the top of the transmitter, and the petri dish to simulate a set of teeth chomping. It took about 60 seconds, then he stopped and waited. Ten seconds later, the transmitter buzzed, just enough for Rob to see and hear with his face about six inches from it. 'It sent,' he told them.

'Cool,' Sweets grinned. 'That is so retro. _And_ next-gen. It's paradoxically cool.'

'How do we track it?' Booth asked.

'I've got the computer on it, it's sending the data to our communications expert. As soon as we find anything I'll give you a call, probably take a few hours.'

'Okay great,' said Booth. 'C'mon Sweets, back to the drawing board. Don't know where the hell we're going to go from here…'

Sweets followed him out. 'Hey Booth,' he said as they got into the elevator. 'I uh…

'What?'

'Actually I've been thinking about something,' Sweets said hesitantly. 'An avenue we could take.'

'Okay.'

'Well—and you may not like it—but at some point, I think it would be worthwhile… trying to help Brennan remember some things from her captivity.'

Booth looked at him, his expression unreadable.

'I could… talk to her,' said Sweets, moving his hands around to gesture "a small measured amount". 'I'd be very nonintrusive and we'd go very slow, stop at any point she feels uncomfortable. I just… I mean if finding these guys is the best thing we can do for her, then we should consider that as one option.'

Booth gave a small nod, though he looked pretty tightly wound. Sweets was just a tiny bit scared. 'Well she's at the lab, uh, maybe you should go over there and get her,' said Booth.

'Why me, don't—wait, is something going on?'

'What? No, no, just… I mean, it's been nearly two months she's been back and… we just, need some space from each other, you know?'

'Oh, yeah-yeah, that's fine,' Sweets said quickly. 'Not a problem. I can pick her up, I'll call Angela on the way.'

'Thanks Sweets. Look, I'm gonna go out, I want to visit Broadsky's old place, just check on things with my own two eyes, talk to the surveillance guy… Look you just bring her back and talk to her, give me a call when you're done.'

'Oh, yeah, okay. Hey look—if you two need some help, I mean, if stuff between you isn't so great I could maybe—'

'Thanks Sweets but that's not really our thing, you understand that. I'm just going to grab my files and head out…'

Booth clapped Sweets once on the shoulder as they reached his floor and hurried off around the corner before Sweets could say anything else. '….Ooookay,' Sweets said. 'Right. Dr Brennan it is…'


	53. Chapter 53

Brennan was back on the ground floor of the Jeffersonian. Even though she didn't have any fresh clothes she'd taken a shower. It felt kind of gross to put the sweaty clothes back on. Really gross. She didn't really want to, but it was clear that she'd have to go to her office and get a change of clothes. She didn't actually stink too badly, since sweat is sterile but by thisafternoon her body temperature would create the perfect environment for bacteria. She didn't want Booth sitting next to her on the ride home if she stank.

It wasn't too hard to sneak through the open space of the lab because the platform was empty. Everyone must be in someone's office. She slipped into her room and went behind her desk where she kept her spare clothes. Leaving some here had been useful numerous times, like the time her jumpsuit ripped at a crime scene, or the time it had started bucketing down on the way out of a dump site. There was a dress and a sweater, and underwear so she grabbed it all and headed to the decontamination shower. One more shower might be a good idea. She could certainly use the steam and hot water to calm her down after the somewhat emotional day she'd had so far.

When she got out of the shower Angela was standing outside, arms crossed and a wry grin on her face. 'You really know how to live it up, Bren. Nothing classier than a decontamination shower. You do really have money, don't you?— because for someone well-off you rock it like a broke college student on a Monday after a weekend you don't remember and a lost wallet… or that could just be me. What are you doing here?'

'I uh, I was up at the gym,' Brennan said, bundling her dirty clothes up under one arm. 'How did you know I was in here?'

'Oh just my sixth-sense,' Angela said airily. 'Or the fact that I just had a phone call from Sweets, saying you were here and he's coming to pick you up.'

'What? Why? Was uh, Booth there?'

'Yes really; because he wants to talk to you; and no. He should be here any minute though. Sweetie, have you eaten anything today? You look like you're about to faint.'

'I had some toast…'

'Like what, six hours ago. And you've been at the gym? Hang on, I've got some museli bars in my handbag, and I am going to watch you eat them, cos I'm a good best friend and I'm not going to let you drop dead from starvation.'

'But I'm fine, I don't want—'

'Nuh uh, no buts. Come on, handbag's this way.'

Angela dragged Brennan towards her office, and as they were crossing the floor Sweets spotted them. 'Dr Brennan! Angela, how are you guys?'

'On a mission,' said Angela, tugging at Brennan's hand when she turned around. 'We're getting food.'

'No, we're not, Ange I can eat something at the Hoover, Booth's got stuff in the fridge. Where _is_ Booth?'

'Uh, actually he's taking the afternoon off, just checking out a few things for the case,' Sweets said a little too lightly.

'Uh….huh,' Angela said with a frown. 'I'm gonna leave that one alone. Hang on Bren, give me the clothes and give me a sec, I'll get the muesli bar, which you will take, and Sweets has to make sure you eat it. If you faint I will feel personally responsible.'

'There's no need—uh.' Angela grabbed the clothes and took off. 'So where are we going?' she asked dazedly turning to Sweets.

'Booth and I were talking, and we think…' Sweets trailed off. How could he say this without it being upsetting? 'I mean, we're trying to bring these guys in, but they're impossible to track. You would have to have memories that could lead us— I mean, places, sounds, voices… I thought we could try some very gentle memory work—only, if you're comfortable with it, I mean.'

Brennan glanced back toward Angela's office. She kind of wished Ange was back here to give her opinion on this. 'Uh… where's Booth?'

Sweets looked at her strangely. He'd just told her that. 'He's checking a potential crime scene. Look, Dr Brennan this has to be your choice, I'm not going to push you.'

'You really don't have any other leads?'

'Well not really,' said Sweets, feeling slightly guilty for not mentioning the transmitter they'd found.

'I uh, I… okay.'

'Yeah?' Sweets said happily. 'Oh you won't regret this, this is—this is good, it'll help.'

Angela came back with the muesli bar. 'I'll see you later Sweetie. Call me if you need anything, okay?'

Brennan nodded and followed Sweets out of the lab. 'So where's Booth?' she asked as they got into Sweets' car.

'He's at a crime scene,' Sweets said for the third time. _This is not a good sign_.

'Oh.' Brennan stared fixedly out the window. Or at the window. One of those. Sweets just focussed on driving, and ten minutes later they were getting out of the car and on their way upstairs.

'Here we go,' he said, ushering her into his office. 'Do you want a water? Take a seat…' He grabbed her a cup of chilled water from his dispenser and took a seat opposite her with a notebook. 'Okay, you ready?'

'Ready for what?'

Sweets frowned. 'Are you sure you're okay with doing this, Dr Brennan?'

'Yes, of course, why wouldn't I be?' she said, suddenly sounding not bewildered, but brisk and professional. 'It's logically sound to use my memories in order to find the suspects, though I'm a bit unsure how this is supposed to work.'

Brennan looked poised and focussed, unlike half a minute ago. Should he go ahead with this? She _had_ agreed. And Booth knew, he'd okayed it. 'Okay. Now—this is going to be simply, me asking you some questions to help you re-experience things that happened in the time you were away. Now I know you've had a couple of flashbacks—I know it can be shocking sometimes to be flooded with a memory, but we're safe in an office at the Hoover, and I'm going to keep reminding you of that as we go.' Brennan nodded. 'So uh… Maybe you'd like to start by telling me some of the things you've already remembered.'

Brennan blinked a few times, as if trying to see after staring at the sun. 'Um. So, a week ago… I remembered something,' she said slowly. 'There was… there was blood dripping, and some men were talking, something about a key.'

'A key.'

'Yes, one of them had brought the other man a key. I was tied up and I heard them.'

'That's a great place to start. Okay—now, just for a couple of minutes, close your eyes and think about being there in that memory. Think about what you can taste and smell and feel, what you can hear or see. Are you sitting down, or—'

'I was hanging upside down and I could taste blood. And smell blood. And…. there was a dirt floor.'

'Oh. Was there a rope ladder?'

'No,' Brennan said, scrunching her face up. 'Why would you say that?'

'Well at the warehouse, we found a basement, just dug-out earth. Remember the night we went to the warehouse? I know you were uh, going through some things that night…'

'This memory wasn't from that basement.'

'Oh, okay,' said Sweets. She said that quite assuredly. 'There was at least one other place where you were held. Go back to that place again in your mind. Was there natural light? Light bulbs, darkness? Was it cold? Were you above ground?'

'There was… it was pretty dark. It was….' She trailed off for almost a minute. Sweets didn't interrupt her thinking. 'It was above the ground,' she said at last. 'The walls were made of wood. My feet were tied from the ceiling.'

Sweets nodded. 'Great. That's fantastic, you're doing well. Is there anything else about that memory that stands out to you? You said some men were talking. What did their voices sound like? Can you hear them in your head?'

'I don't know,' she said after a moment. 'One was… he had a heavy accent. One sounded sort of young.'

'That's good,' Sweets said, writing down notes as she spoke.

'There were rats,' Brennan said after a pause. 'I could hear them, and there were insects, flies…'

'Was it hot, cold?'

'It… it was daytime, and there were flies, so it was hot,' she said. 'I don't really remember anything else.'

Sweets scribbled down the last details she'd remembered then focussed on her. 'That's great, you're doing really well. How are you feeling?'

'I uh, I'm fine,' she said somewhat defensively.

'Good, that's great. Um, we could continue with another memory if you feel up to it.'

It was suddenly very important to study her fingernails. Sweets waited as she examined each one in turn, and when she'd finished she glanced warily up at him. Sweets pretended to have been reading his notes instead of watching her. 'I… there was something I remembered yesterday,' she admitted.

'Really? that's great. Do you want to tell me about it?'

'Uh…' Brennan trailed off and looked some more at her hands. Sweets decided to just wait til she was ready and not push. 'I remember being in a room. It was very bright, white walls and floor, floodlights. I was curled up in the corner on the floor. There were these loud sounds…'

'What sounds?'

'Like… sonic waves… my head felt like it was going to explode. Then the lights started flashing. I had… been awake, for a very long time.'

Sweets jotted this down, getting an unpleasant picture of what another part of the seven weeks might have been like. 'They were keeping you awake on purpose.'

'I don't know how long it went for,' Brennan went on. 'It felt like months. I didn't eat, they gave me water… time just stood still. I closed my eyes but the flashing was too bright. I think people were watching me.'

Brennan was beginning to twitch. Sweets could see her neck spasming, causing her head to move. 'Hey, why don't we wrap it up for today. You've done really well Dr Brennan, this information is going to help.'

'Okay,' Brennan said, her arm slightly jerking. She had a deer-in-the-headlights look in her eyes.

'Hey, um, I might call Booth for you, okay?' Sweets offered, pulling out his cell phone.

'No!' Brennan said sharply. Sweets stopped with his hand mid-air over Booth's speed dial.

'Are you sure? you look like, I mean doing this isn't easy, you shouldn't be trying to deal with this alo—'

'Don't call him, okay? Just don't, I… please.' Sweets frowned as she tried to explain. 'I just, I want to get better. And I want Booth to know that.'

'But you can't, you can't… just ignore it when things get tough. I know this is—'

'I don't want him to know, okay? I'm fine. It's going to be fine.' Brennan looked resolute, so Sweets finally nodded.

'I won't tell him, if that's what you want. But I really think it would be wise to—'

'I'm going to be fine, Sweets. I don't have to have Booth to be fine.'

Sweets nodded slowly. '…uh, right.'

Brennan got up and made for the door. 'Uh, do you want a lift back to the Jeffersonian?' Sweets asked.

'No, I'm just… I'm going to wait in Booth's office. Do you know what time he'll be back?'

'Well uh, a um, suspect is going to be moved to a prison at four, so he'll be back for that.'

Brennan left without responding.


	54. Chapter 54

Booth was leaning against a tree on Broadsky's property. He hadn't been here since the few nights he'd spent here in a sort of vigil while Bones was gone, waiting for Broadsky to contact him. It was here that he'd answered that phone call and got Angela to track it. He sort of wished Broadsky would call again and either turn himself in or give Booth the information he needed about Brennan's incarceration, as though there this place was lucky.

He'd spoken to the FBI agent who was on patrol here, supposed to check the security cameras and sound the alarm if there was any sign of the rouge sniper. Of course there had been no sign of him, or Booth would know about it, so there was really no point in him coming here. But he wasn't, if he was honest, really here because of Broadsky. He was here because of Bones.

_She is so __**irritating**_, he thought in exasperation. Women are sometimes moody, but Bones is moody like a thunderstorm. She's a path of destruction. You just have to wait it out.

I mean what had he done, to get her so… out of sorts? Nothing, that's what. Stupid squint, she's just so damn superior, she thinks that she can just—

Booth groaned audibly, partly to express some of this angry energy and partly to break this cycle of thoughts going round and round. Moaning about her wasn't going to make him feel better. At the very least, at some point tonight he was going to have to pick her up from the lab, take her home and put up with her for however long she was going to need him. Which she clearly did, but was oblivious about it. Because that's what partners do. Or something. _Dammit._

It was three-thirty, and Kraus was being moved at four. He figured he should get over there—no way was he going to miss this handover. He had to be there to make sure nothing went wrong. Plus, if he didn't see it with his own eyes, he'd be up all night worrying that Kraus had actually escaped and was climbing in the window to kill them both.

Still feeling tense and mad, he got into the SUV and headed back to the main road, kicking up a lot more dust than necessary as he sped down the driveway. He hoped this changeover would make an impression on Kraus. Booth was still hopeful that at some point, Kraus would talk. The guy was really only concerned about his own hide. It should be a simple matter of bargaining— though it was also a battle of the wills. Whoever held out the longest would play the ace. Either Kraus would cave over his living conditions and sentence, or Booth would first get desperate to find the information he wanted. And of course both of them were extremely stubborn.

_What does Kraus want?_ Booth thought as he wove in and out of traffic. He had no reason to put on the siren, and to be honest he liked driving, the chance to sit in the car and just think. He seemed genuinely afraid to dob in his associates. Although, any argument based on Kraus being 'genuine' was pretty feeble.

As he approached the Hoover Booth could see the armoured truck parked outside the steps. Half a dozen agents and prison officers stood around ready to get Kraus safely in the truck.

Booth pulled into the carpark and jogged back out the front. The officers were standing with their arms crossed or in their pockets waiting for him to be brought out.

'Booth!' Sweets was coming down the stairs. 'Didn't want to miss the fun,' he said.

Booth bristled slightly. 'It's not a tourist attraction.'

Sweets raised an eyebrow and didn't comment. Booth was obviously not too happy and Sweets wasn't about to stick his hand on the hotplate.

'He's on his way!' called an agent from the top of the stairs. Booth and Sweets turned to look. A couple of officers were leading Kraus, each holding the end of a chain linked through his handcuffs. Kraus' eyes were as blank as Booth had ever seen them. Usually they were dancing with malice or mirth. He came down the steps at a leisurely pace, the officers having to stop and wait for him to move to the next step a few times.

'Trying to enjoy the sunshine? It might be the last you get for a while,' one of the agents said. Kraus flinched angrily.

'Ohh, don't upset the killer,' Sweets warned with mild alarm. Kraus was middle-aged, but the speed with which he moved the next few seconds, he was spry as a kid.

He yanked suddenly on the chain, causing both officers to slip on the stairs and drop the ends. Kraus had something in his hand—it looked like an ordinary ballpoint pen. By the time Booth had seen Brennan in the crowd on the stairs, Kraus had his hands around her throat and the pen pointed at her jugular.

Booth could only react. He lunged to the side to get a clean shot at Kraus, and he fired. People screamed. Brennan and Kraus fell together, the dead weight of the prisoner pulling her backwards on top of him as she tugged at his hands, trying to keep her airway open.

Booth was there in half a second, yanking Kraus' wrists up and over her head. She coughed and spluttered, and he pulled her up. Kraus lay twitching on the steps, probably with a few broken bones but it hardly mattered. The pool of blood spreading beneath him and onto his shirt made it pretty clear he was beyond saving.

He blinked and heaved a last time and then he was dead. Brennan stumbled out of Booth's grasp and leaned back against the railing. Booth stared in shock at Kraus. What the hell had just happened?

People were screaming and shouting. The two officers were getting up, one of them wincing in pain and holding his leg. 'Booth!' someone was yelling. Booth took a step backwards. He'd just shot Kraus. Kraus was dead. They _needed_ Kraus. He looked around for Sweets, where the hell was he?

'Someone get an ambulance!' someone was shrieking.

'No—' Booth started to say, far too quietly for anyone to hear, 'no, he's dead—'

He looked at Brennan who was gripping the handrail, reeling with shock as she looked everywhere but at him. Another agent came up and put a hand on Booth's shoulder. 'Booth…'

People were saying his name. He turned and walked back to where he'd been standing with Sweets. 'Booth!' Sweets said, appearing out of the crowd.

'Oh, Sweets. Can you—we've gotta call this in…'

'Don't worry, someone's already doing it. You want to go upstairs? You should come inside.'

'Bones,' he said, turning back to the rail on the stairs. 'Where'd she go?'

Sweets looked around. 'Oh—the street, she's heading down the street.'

Booth looked where he was pointing to see Bones walking quickly away from the crowd. 'Bones.' He jogged after her, pushing through people. 'Excuse me, sorry—' She was twenty paces away. He ran to catch up with her, then put a hand on her shoulder to stop her. 'Bones. Where're you going?' She turned around looking shell-shocked. 'You need to come inside. C'mon, let's go.' He took another step towards her and she backed up and stumbled, landing awkwardly on the concrete and shrank back against the building.

'Oh no, Bones,' Booth said, forgetting how annoyed he'd been with her a few minutes ago. She was sliding down the wall to sit on the pavement. 'You're in shock,' he said, kneeling down to her level. 'Are you having another flashback? Bones, it's me. It's Booth. _Bones_.'

Brennan had been doing well over the last few days, but you wouldn't know it seeing her now. Her eyes were out of focus and her body was shaking, not in a seizure exactly but a sort of exaggerated shiver with lots of twitching. She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs, trying to make herself as small as possible.

'Bones, stay with me… Can you hear me? He's gone, Bones. He's dead. He's not gonna hurt you.'

Sweets came up behind Booth. 'Is she okay?'

'No, she's not,' Booth said, and it didn't come out as snappily as he thought it might. Seeing Brennan clearly not in control of herself, but overcome by whatever memory or nightmare she was reliving, he couldn't fault her for fighting to be herself and independent the last couple of days. Even if it seemed like she was rejecting him, in reality she probably didn't mean to. She was just trying to be strong.

'Bones,' said Booth again. She was shivering a little less, and rocking back and forward on the balls of her feet. A couple of pedestrians walked by staring at her. The crowd around Kraus was beginning to disperse. Booth really wanted to get her inside, but he didn't think she would cope right now with being moved.

'You just sit with her, Booth I'm gonna get her some water,' Sweets said, getting up and walking back to the Hoover. Booth sat beside her for about fifteen minutes, one hand running over her shoulder and the other hand holding hers, trying to break through to some part of her that was still conscious of her physical surroundings.

Sweets came back with a water bottle and Booth took the cap off and offered it to her. Her eyes seemed to focus and she allowed Booth to put it to her lips, and took a sip. Sweets moved back to give her some space, glaring at a couple of onlookers to move them on.

'Are you okay Bones? Do you know where you are?'

Brennan took a shaky breath and finally focussed on Booth's face. 'Oh. Uh…'

'Come on, let's get you inside,' Booth said, starting to get up.

'No!'

Booth and Sweets looked at her. 'Why, what's wrong?'

'I… I remembered something. We have to, I have to…'

'Okay,' said Booth, squatting again. 'What did you remember? Can you tell me?'

'I… I need to go,' she said, starting to fidget again.

_Go? Seriously, right now?_ 'Why, Bones, go where? Just hang on a sec, explain it to me. Maybe I can help,' Booth said, completely winging it.

Bones stared blankly, as if looking for a piece of lint on her eye. 'They're looking for something.'

Sweets looked at Booth, then back at her. 'Do you mean the key you told me about before, up in my office?'

She shook her head. 'Maybe, I don't know exactly… they're looking for some _thing_, and some _person_. They're looking for him, I have to find—'

Brennan was getting to her feet, as if she was going to charge off into the blue on some mission right now. 'Whoa, whoa. What happened?' Booth said, scrambling to his feet and putting a hand on each of her upper arms to get her attention.

'They're looking for someone! An assassination. They're going to _kill_ someone, I don't know why.' Her eyes were pleading. 'I have to do something.'

'Planning a hit,' Booth said.

'_Yes._'

'Who, Bones?'

'I don't know. But another person is going to die, someone important, and we're the only ones who can stop it.'


	55. Chapter 55

'Broadsky' planning another hit,' Booth repeated. Bones nodded. 'Do you remember, who the person is, why they want them dead?'

Brennan looked ready to dissolve into tears. 'No. But… someone, someone's going to be… We have to do something. He can't kill any more people.'

Sweets frowned as he watched her react to the memory. He felt sure there was something behind this. She was taking this nameless assassination threat very personally. 'Is there anything else you can tell us about the target— male or female, you said they were important. Like a government official?'

'Sweets,' Booth said in an undertone as he pulled Bones in a step closer. He glared at the shrink over her head.

'I don't, I don't remember. It was a "he",' Brennan said, frowning as she tried to remember. 'Booth. I have to do something.'

'Look, Bones, Sweets can go tell Agent Shaw about the hit.'

'I want to tell her.'

'Okay, you can tell her, and if there's anything we can do, we'll do it. She's got a fantastic team, and I'm still trying to bring the crooks in. We'll do whatever we can to save this person's life. Okay?'

Bones brushed her fringe out of her eyes, now looking at a spot on the pavement. She nodded, but Booth could sense waves of adrenaline coming off her. She wanted to be running somewhere, or beating somebody up.

'Okay, can we go inside now?' Booth said, glancing at the crowds still milling around them.

'Yeah.'

He wrapped an arm around Brennan's shoulders and steered her back into the Hoover. As they went up the stairs, which were finally cleared of onlookers, a blue plastic sheet had been thrown over Kraus' body and some men were getting a stretcher ready to remove it. Brennan turned her head forward and looked determinedly the direction they were walking.

None of them spoke much as they rode the elevator back to Booth's office, but Booth kept his arm firmly around Bones. He wasn't sure if he was doing this out of a need to touch her or simply to stop her running off on some hare-brained misadventure. He was half expecting her to punch him in the nose and make a run for it.

At his floor the three of them got out and headed into the office. Booth dialled Shaw and put Brennan on the phone, letting her pass on what she'd remembered while he and Sweets pretended not to listen in. Booth was sure Genny was the right person for Bones to tell— she would be especially nice and would actually follow through on her promises. Bones looked relieved when she hung up the phone.

'Great. So—you got everything?' He cleaned up his paperwork and grabbed his keys. She nodded. She'd kept her bag with her all day. 'Okay, let's head. See ya Sweets.'

Brennan latched onto his arm and followed him back to the lifts. After the relational turmoil of the last 24 hours, Booth was just relieved to see Brennan acting a bit more open and trusting again. Even though the circumstances were somewhat horrible.

They didn't say much as they took the lift to the carpark, but it was a rich and comfortable silence. However much Brennan wanted to be like she was before, she couldn't do it instantly or alone. If she refused to let her friends in, she'd never fully get there.

In the last weeks she and Booth had confessed feelings and promised to be each other's family. It hurt a lot when one of them pulled away, for both of them. This evening, both were remembering how the day started, with anger and silence and distance. Maybe the threat of another victim, and the first genuine teamwork they'd had on this case, was what it took to bring them back.

Booth opened the passenger door of the SUV and Bones quietly got in and put on her seatbelt. As he started the engine he sneaked a few glances at her. She was quiet and wouldn't look away from her hands in her lap. They were both thinking about things between them, and where they stood.

'Bones, you and me, we're okay. Really we are. You're going to get better.'

'I don't know if… I mean, if I can't…'

Booth could only guess at what she meant, but he happened to guess pretty well. 'You'll be able to manage by yourself in a while, Bones. It'll happen. You'll be able to be as independent as you want, but getting better doesn't mean you have to suddenly do everything on your own. I'm not going to kick you out the minute you're feeling on top of things.'

'Really?' She had spoken so softly he might have imagined it.

'You're welcome to stay with me for as long as you want, Bones, even after you get better. I'm not going to get up one day and send you home. We're family, you and me, remember when we talked about that? Because we choose to be.' Brennan nodded, still staring fixedly at her lap. 'So no more worrying about being on your own. If you come or go, that will be your decision, Bones, but I'm not going to just abandon you or kick you out. Home can be, you know, a person. Not just a place. So no more freaking out about what's going to happen, hey?'

Booth paused in the driveway, waiting for her to reply. She wondered if he was alluding to them being together but didn't want to ask. She didn't feel so worried about having to go home, and part of her really did want to do so at the right time. She didn't quite know who she was if she didn't have her independence. She relied on that, to feel like she could cope with the world, and she wasn't sure she could give that up. It made her sad, and she couldn't work out why. But if Booth said she could stay, then she simply wouldn't think about leaving. Until the day she was ready.

'Okay,' Brennan said after a moment. She locked eyes with Booth and smiled bravely. 'Deal.'


	56. Chapter 56

Brennan woke up the next morning back in Booth's bed to find him spread out next to her on top of the blankets. 'Hello,' she said, awkwardly sitting up. 'Was I… were you…'

'_You_ were sleeping like a baby, and I was trying to figure out this Magic Eye book, see?' Booth waved it in front of her. 'Parker left it here. It's supposed to have optical illusions, but I think it's just giving me a headache.'

Bones yawned and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. 'Is it morning?'

'Yep, well and truly. I didn't want to open the blinds and wake you up.'

'You just wanted to lie next to me and see how long I took to notice.'

'And it took you nearly an hour, you're a very deep sleeper when you're tired.'

Brennan sleepily swung her legs out of bed and grabbed some clothes on her way to the shower. Booth watched as she closed the door, thinking of how a few weeks ago, she wouldn't have been able to do that.

He didn't know exactly how he felt about her new-found independence. Was it wrong that he missed her needing him all the time? If it had been someone else, it would be different. Clingy girls weren't his favourite by a long shot. It was just Brennan he liked this way- maybe because it was an ego boost, and that was probably wrong. Definitely wrong.

In reality it didn't matter. Whether she expressed it or not, he knew they were solid, more than solid. Her getting back to normal wouldn't erase the bonding they'd had. This reminded him of how he'd sometimes felt about Parker growing up. It was kind of like that. With kids, when they're young and they need you, but it's okay because they grow and change. Brennan had definitely grown and changed. There was no point being nostalgic about it. When she was stronger, she would likely feel she couldn't stay here anymore, not unless they were together. Booth felt like that time was speeding towards them, and he had barely had a chance to convince her to be with him. What if she said no, and just left?

Before his thoughts could get more depressing his phone rang. 'Booth.'

'Booth, hi, I've just heard back from Rob down in the tech office,' came Sweets' voice. 'He took the tooth microphone home with him, just in case it received a message and did—he thinks he's got a location.'

'A location, that's great, what did the message say?'

'Uh, it was 'openseason'. Whatever that means. The first track they did when we sent the message yesterday was inconclusive, the signal was weird and the area was too general but this time? Nailed it.'

'Great, so I guess I'm going over. Can you give me the location now?'

'Yeah, it's 240 Clifford St, I'll text it to you. Are you taking Dr Brennan?'

'Haven't really thought that far yet.'

'Okay, well you might want to sort that out because there's something else.'

'Something else,' said Booth. 'You said that in a _tone_. What?'

'The morgue called, when they were doing the autopsy on Kraus.'

'They found something?'

'They found _two_ bullets, both fired at almost exactly the same time. One was yours…'

'And the other was Broadsky's,' Booth said. 'Son of a bitch.'

'Well— that's the thing, it might not be. The bullet didn't match any of the previous types of ammunition we've got on file for Broadsky. I can't say conclusively that it wasn't him, but it _would_ be unusual if it had been him, given his MO.'

'I want that body out of the morgue and at the Jeffersonian,' Booth said, getting up and pulling out a shirt and jeans with his free hand. 'Can you do that, have you got their number?'

'I'll call them straight away and organise to have the body picked up.'

'Great. I'm going to that location with the transceiver, I'll talk to Bones, see what she wants to do. Thanks Sweets.'

Booth ended the call and Bones came out of the bathroom, her hair wet and wearing a short dress over jeans. 'Hey Bones, we've got another lead.'

'On the next victim?' she asked, her eyes widening, showing both horror and hope.

_Oh_. _ Oops._ 'No, not on the next victim, Bones, I'm sorry.' Brennan looked crushed. 'I can see it means a lot to you to find them.'

She shrugged, trying not to downplay it. 'I just… I don't want anyone else to have to go through… things like I did… It would feel like it didn't happen for nothing, if I could save someone else.'

She came and sat next to Booth on the bed, being careful not to touch him. Booth started to put his hand out to rub her back but drew it back. He could sense she was trying to deal with this on her own. 'We'll do whatever we ca—' Booth started to say.

'I had a dream about you last night.'

'What?' That was about the last phrase he'd expected to come out of her mouth. 'Um, uh, do you mean—'

'I think I was underground. I was chained up and I was trying to call out to you, but you couldn't hear me.'

Right. A dream about her captivity. That made sense, more than what he'd been thinking anyway, which he now felt slightly guilty about. 'Do you mean you remembered something? Something else that happened?'

Brennan started to say something but closed her mouth again. He watched her think about how to explain it. 'The place I was felt familiar, I think I remembered it, but of course you weren't really there. Maybe I'm remembering a dream from back then… it felt familiar.' She was speaking softly, as if off in her own little world. Booth didn't say anything, in case interrupting broke her concentration. 'I think… I think some things, that I remember, are real. And some things are just dreams. And other things… Some of it didn't happen at all.'

She turned and looked at him, eyes big and sad, and searching, looking for recognition on his face, that he knew what she meant. 'Bones…'

'I, I know I hallucinated things,' she confessed, looking down at her lap. 'It's hard to know what was real. It feels so real, and so false, at the same time. I don't know why.'

'Okay, well, that's… logical,' Booth tried. He couldn't leave her there in the limbo between illusion and reality without saying _something_ to make her feel better. Even if he didn't know what the hell to say.

'Yeah, it's logical,' she repeated. 'But there's no way to tell between things. I mean, this dream… it felt familiar, but I know you weren't there. You weren't, were you?' she asked just to check.

'No, Bones, I was looking, I was looking everywhere for you… but I didn't know anyplace that's underground where… you might have been held.' Of course there was the cellar in the warehouse, but that had been weeks after she'd come home.

'Oh.' Bones nodded. 'Yeah. I guess it was just a dream, not a memory.'

She looked slightly disappointed. 'You would have dreamed a lot,' Booth said. He said it because he knew she had been on drugs and any combination of psychological torture, however he didn't mention that to her. The less horrible things she remembered, the happier Booth would be. Of course, _he_ wanted to know, down to the last detail, which just fuelled him even more to find McCullough and Broadsky.

'You shot that man yesterday,' Brennan said out of the blue.

'Yeah I know.'

'He had his hands around my neck.'

Booth squinted across at her, but was careful not to catch her eye. Some things were easier to say if you were looking somewhere else. 'You say that like you think it might have been a dream,' he commented.

'For all I know, I could have imagined it… if you hadn't seen it too.'

Booth nodded. 'Yeah.'

Brennan sat up straighter and primly brushed her hair off her face. 'You know— the more I remember, the more confusing things get,' she said very clinically and briskly. Booth suspected that had been a difficult confession to make. She got up and went straight out to the kitchen to make some toast.

Booth sat where he was and watched her move around the kitchen. She was in full-on, no-nonsense-scientist mode. It was probably a good thing she had her job to express that side of herself. It didn't bode terribly well with Booth—he could handle it, of course, but it was like steering a stubborn donkey. It took effort.

He ducked into the bathroom to change into his work clothes, ran a comb through his hair and brushed his teeth. By the time he got out Bones was finishing off her toast and putting the plate into the dishwasher. She looked… like she was behind a glass veneer. She was somehow detached. Booth recognised this side of her, the side that could detach on cue, could examine a dead child's remains and not feel overwhelmed with sadness. It was one of the sides of her he'd known since the very beginning. He wasn't entirely sure if seeing it now was a good thing.

'You ready?'

'Yes.'

'Uh, Bones do you want to come to the location with me? It would, you know, probably be easier on you if I take you to the lab.' Although Kraus' body was at the lab. To be honest there wasn't really a good option. He could always leave her with Sweets again, since that went so well last time.

'Oh. Um… I'd like to go to work. I want to go and do something today. If I don't I'll just be _thinking_.'

Thinking about other victims, and Booth failing to rescue her in her dreams, and strange memories and images that could be perfectly accurate, or utterly false. 'Yeah, I think the lab sounds good. You can always head down to Limbo, get some ancient warrior out for some fresh air.'

'Skeletons cannot breathe, Booth.'

'Oh I don't know, I'm sure you told me some old story about bones reacting to oxygen, or was it nitrogen…'

'I think you imagined that,' Bones said as he locked the front door behind them.

Booth smiled at her. 'Oh, I _imagined_ that. That's a good one. See, it's not just you.'

Brennan tried to come up with a witty response to that, but ended up just following Booth to the SUV.

.

The car ride was pretty quiet, but something about it was old and familiar. Today Bones was holding her head higher than she had the last few weeks. It was as if during her captivity she'd curled in on herself, and now she was unfolding like a morning glory. Booth didn't make any comment on the changes. Both of them knew. Recently Brennan would sometimes glance at Booth, while she was being more focussed and efficient, more like herself, and they would just share that moment between them quietly, without needing to put it into words. It was strange and normal at once, like any change—good, but painful and nostalgic. Booth didn't quite know what he was being nostalgic for now—for his old Bones before she was taken, or for the woman who would curl up on his lap and just watch whales swimming for hours.

Booth decided to walk her in, not just drop her off like he did yesterday. That morning had tasted bitter for both of them.

'Thanks,' Bones said as they pulled into the parking garage, slipping out of her seat. Booth swung his door open and met her on the way to the lifts. Both of them found themselves smiling, and were in a pretty good mood as they walked into the lab.

'Hey, it's Dr B!' Hodgins called with a wave. 'Welcome back, if you're looking for some bones you've come to the right place.'

Booth chuckled. 'Hear that, Bones? They've got skeletons piled up waiting for you to read their fortune.'

'I don't _read fortunes_,' Brennan pointed out.

'You could just go with it for once, you know,' Booth smiled as he opened the door to her office.

'Hey, Brennan!' Angela said from behind them. 'Look, I've got little Mikey all excited to see you! Aren't you happy to see Aunty Bren? yes you are,' she added to the baby, dangling her fingers in front of his face so he could grab at them. Brennan went over to her best friend and Angela passed her the baby.

'Hello,' she cooed over the little boy.

Booth looked over her shoulder. 'Aw, look at the little man! You guys getting any sleep yet?'

'Oh, some,' Angela shrugged. 'I make up for it here, to be honest. I've got a really good couch. I didn't have much maternity leave but I twisted Cam's finger enough to let me turn my office into a nursery.'

'Ha, I'll bet she loves that,' Booth grinned.

'Well, she gets me here to solve the odd problem, and let's face it, I'm uniquely qualified around here,' Angela smirked. Brennan just gazed at the baby and swayed him on the spot. 'It's not so bad, I mean I've got Hodgins here too, so Michael gets both of us, don't you,' she said, tickling the baby's tummy. 'You looove hanging out with daddy, hey Mikey.'

Brennan was captivated by the child and smiled at him like she was blocking the rest of the world out. Booth watched her thoughtfully. She might not think so, but he definitely thought she was a natural.

'Hey uh, I've gotta go, Bones,' he said, after giving her a few more moments to be lost in watching the baby.

'Oh,' she said. She looked at Booth, and he could see vulnerability written on her face, however self-reliant she had felt that morning.

'I'll call you around lunchtime,' Booth promised, 'let you know what I'm up to, and I'll pick you up sometime thisafternoon, 'kay?'

'Okay.' She looked back at the baby, as if wanting to hide her face from her partner. She knew he was reading her like an open book.

Booth shared a glance with Angela. 'You uh, you call if you need me, Bones,' he said.

Bones didn't look up from Michael. 'Okay.'

Booth brushed his hand briefly over her back, which made her look up for a moment, and he took that as his cue to go, before he risked making her emotional. Even to him it was plainly obvious that the squints were working to keep Brennan away from the platform, where a body in a bag was now being wheeled up for Cam to autopsy. Kraus.

Booth silently thanked Angela, and strode out of the lab. He could see Cam directing the guys from the morgue where to lay the body out, and Dr Edison was preparing a bunch of tools and lights and high-tech looking equipment that after years of hanging around here, Booth still had no idea what it did.

He didn't look back, almost worrying he'd see Bones running after him, changing her mind about wanting to come with him. _She'll be fine_, he told himself. It was time to go hunting for McCullough.


	57. Chapter 57

'Wow, this guy looks almost as scary dead as he did alive,' Cam said to Edison as they pulled open the zip on the body bag. He was ice-cold, out of the freezer at the morgue, and was still dressed in the clothes he'd worn when he died, since no one had organised a funeral. _Not that anyone would want to go_, Cam thought.

'His glasses are pretty thick… You know, even though this guy is in better shape than most of the victims we see, I'd sort of like to look at the bone markers on his hands, just to see how consistent they are with torture. It'd be fascinating to see what clues are written in this skeleton,' said Clark.

'What do you think of the bullet wound?'

'This one on his left side was clearly the shot Booth made. I'll need to get it x-rayed but from the projectory I'd say it hit at least one rib.'

'We have a second wound though…'

'Yes, the second shot was fired to the back of his skull. If we can find out which direction Kraus was facing we might be able to posit where the gunman stood.'

'I've got the bullet,' Cam said, holding up an evidence bag. 'And it's not the type that Broadsky would usually go for, according to Sweets and Booth. Huh… I think we need Angela for this one.'

Clark looked at her quizzically. 'Should…. I go get her and find someone else to stay with Dr Brennan?'

'Yes, thank-you. Maybe Hodgins for now? We'll need him to take samples from the body when Angela's done, but he'll be great for babysitting Brennan...'

Clark nodded and made his way to her office.

'He rolled over for the first time yesterday,' Angela was proudly telling Brennan as Clark came to the door.

'Uh, Angela, Dr Saroyan needs you to find out about a bullet.'

Brennan froze, somehow knowing it was Kraus, but she took a deep breath and went back to watching Michael.

'Oh, Sweetie, here can you mind him for me?'

'I can go get Dr Hodgins,' Clark offered.

'That would be great Clark. Okay, you know where his toys are?' she asked Brennan.

'Yes.'

'Great. He likes the purple elephant the best.'

'Well, you know, elephants aren't really purple…'

'Well he's obviously got my artistic streak then,' Angela said with a wink. She followed Clark out the door and went on up to the platform.

A moment later Hodgins walked in. 'Hey, Brennan, looks like you're a natural with Michael,' he said at the sight of her cradling the almost two-month old.

'Oh. I don't know, but he's very sleepy right now.'

'Yeah, me too. Funny that,' Hodgins laughed.

'Angela was telling me about your new pet,' Brennan said, swaying Michael gently back and forth.

Hodgins got an evil grin on his face. 'You wanna come see it? It's wicked cool.'

'A, a snake? I don't think so, I don't like snakes,' Brennan said quickly. 'Plus, I mean Michael, you probably shouldn't have a baby near dangerous reptiles.'

'Oh, the only thing dangerous about Slinky is how much effort it is to properly maintain his habitat. Come on, you've gotta come check him out. You know you want to.'

Brennan caved in, and followed Hodgins into his office, a room she really did find fascinating. It was always filled with a fantastic array of plant and animal specimens, some of them poisonous, bad-smelling or nearly extinct, which just made them all the more interesting in Brennan's opinion. Slinky's tank was at the far end of the room, and filled with bits of wood and moss to slither around and hide under. There was a jar of live insects and also a sealed container marked 'snake food', which Brennan assumed was probably dead rodents. She held Michael a little tighter and angled her body slightly away from the tank.

'Hey, Slinky, you wanna show us your trick?' Hodgins said, sliding the lid open and letting him wind around his arm.

'Are you sure that's safe?' Brennan asked.

'Ab-so-lutely,' Hodgins assured her. 'This snake is not only non-venomous, but has much smaller fangs and jaw span than most species. He's too small to go after things like birds, I mainly give him mice and insects. He's kind of affectionate, don't you think?' he said, watching Slinky wind happily over his outstretched palms.

'The pattern on his skin is very beautiful,' Brennan conceded. Staying at a good distance, she watched Hodgins put some food into the tank and lower Slinky back into his habitat under the warming light.

'How's Michael going?' he asked.

'Oh he's good, he's fast asleep,' Brennan said, smiling down at the baby.

'You know, you should come around here a bit during the week, Angela would love you to babysit so she can do some work.'

Angela appeared at the doorway. 'You mean so you wouldn't have to feel guilty about bringing him into the room with a snake,' she suggested.

'I love Michael more than the snake,' Hodgins said defensively.

'I know you do honey. But yeah, totally come over to play with Mikey, Bren. He's really taken to you.'

'Well babies don't usually distinguish between people until they are older than Michael—'

'Well Mikey's very personable, and I can tell he likes his Auntie Bren. Oh, Hodgins- you're up next,' she said, indicating towards the platform with her head.

'Oh, right. Sure. I'll see you later little man,' Hodgins said to the baby, still in Brennan's arms, and Michael responded by drooling in his sleep.

'Ohh,' said Brennan, trying not to get it all over her.

'Hah. You need a cloth over your shoulder when you hold him,' Ange said coming to her rescue. 'But honestly, after giving birth and changing 20 diapers a day you sort of get used to it.'

.

Hodgins swiped himself up the platform stairs. 'What did we find about the gun?' he asked Cam.

Cam shared a glance with Clark, then led Hodgins over to a computer screen. 'The bullet was unusual because the gun it came from was a left-handed gun.'

'Are left-handed guns that different from regular guns?'

'Well according to Angela, the striations from the barrel match this manufacturer, that one there-' pointing at the screen- 'which specialises in left-handed weapons.'

'So I guess that rules out Broadsky,' Clark said.

'Unless Broadsky used that gun on purpose to put us off the trail,' Hodgins said, rather too excitedly.

'I'm going to make a leap of faith here and say that it probably _wasn't_ Broadsky,' Cam said, looking sternly at the lab's conspiracy theorist, who shrugged.

'What? I think outside the box.'

'And that's why you work here,' Cam softened.

'So what we need now,' Clark went on, 'is particulates from the bullet and his old clothing, anything you can tell us.'

'Yeah, sure. Now— I'm going to need clothing items, fingernail scrapings and shoes.'

.

Booth pulled up outside a homely-looking building with a wire fence and a rusty mailbox. He got out, flicked the safety off his gun and made his way to the front door.

He thought he could hear chickens clucking around the side of the house. The lawn was a bit overgrown. He knocked on the door and waited, listening carefully for sounds of someone getting out around the back.

A minute later the door opened. 'Hello?'

It was a young man—well, at first Booth thought he was young, but maybe his face just looked elongated and scarred from dozens of pimples, making him seem like a teenager. Booth noticed a few grey hairs. This guy could be in his thirties, but he probably still got carded buying booze. It was very dark inside and Booth couldn't even see the man's whole body as he was half in the shadows.

'Yeah, Special Agent Seeley Booth, FBI. Can I come in for a minute? I'd like to ask you some questions.'

The man raised an eyebrow and took a step backwards, Booth flowing at a few paces and shutting the door behind him. He noticed with some surprise that the man was quite hunched over, like he'd spent years slouched over a computer or playing an Xbox and never going outside. Booth's eyes took a while to adjust to the dark and he took a seat in the living room opposite the man.

'I'm looking for a number of… persons of interest,' Booth said. 'I'd appreciate any help you could offer. Do you know of any electronic equipment on the premises capable of transmitting Morse code?'

The man gave a hacking cough and wheeze. 'No, nothing I know of.'

'Are you sure?' asked Booth. 'Because at this stage, you are not a suspect in this investigation, we're not looking for anyone that fits your description. But if you impede a federal case, by lying or withholding evidence, you'll be brought in for questioning, and have a warrant served on this house, and I'm guessing you don't want that.' Booth got the sense that a lot of things were hidden in this little house, and he wouldn't be surprised if there was an indoor greenhouse growing drugs, which would explain why the rest of the house wasn't connected to any power, so the energy providers wouldn't get suspicious with massive bills every quarter. He thought he could hear a generator going and there was the distinct smell of chicken poop wafting in from outside. 'What was your name?'

'Oh. I'm Marshall Igor.'

'Right,' Booth said. 'I'd appreciate any co-operation you can provide me with. Are you familiar with this piece of equipment?' Booth handed him a photo of the tooth transmitter.

'I… no, I am not familiar,' Igor said.

Booth breathed out in frustration. 'Look, I'm really quite pissed off about this whole case, and if you're protecting anyone, I will find out. Have you met any of these three men?' He showed his photos of Kraus, Broadsky and McCullough.

'I…. have not,' Igor said. Booth was sure he was lying.

'I'm going to give you my card,' Booth said, pulling one out of his wallet. 'And if you happen to remember anything, give me a call, because I will be back here with a warrant.'

'I will remember that.'

Booth took this as his cue to leave, and he wasn't at all sorry to get the hell out of there. Now he was going to have to either drive back to the Hoover, or get someone else to draw up a warrant. He felt like this guy shouldn't be left alone in a house with lots of ways to destroy evidence. If there was another transmitter it was likely also very small, and could easily be flushed down the toilet or fed to a chicken.

Booth speed-dialled Caroline from the SUV, still parked outside the house..

'Caroline Julian.'

'Hi Caroline, it's Booth and may I say you're looking particularly lovely today.'

'We're on the phone Cher, and I'm particularly grumpy today. Is this about that hell-awful Broadsky case again, that the whole FBI is buzzing about?'

'Yeah, it is. I need a warrant, a.s.a.p, and what do you mean "_buzzing about_"?'

'Have you picked up the papers today Cherie? Your dead suspect is all over page three, big photo of a sheeted body on the steps of the Hoover. Luckily Dr Brennan's name isn't attached but yours certainly is.'

'Great,' Booth groaned. Just what he needed.

'The day you ask me for a _non-urgent _warrant I'll fall over in shock.'

Booth grinned. 'C'mon Caroline, this little guy is in there right now destroying evidence, I can feel it.'

'Okay, fine. You send me the forms, you can pick it up in an hour, half an hour if you say please.'

'You can just email it to me—I'm gonna get a tech out here, he can print it out in the car. Thanks a million, Caroline. I'll send the data through now.'

Booth grabbed his laptop and filled in a couple of forms for her, then phoned Hodgins, and Jeff, the tech who'd come out looking for Broadsky last time, and organised for him to come over with a printer. Twenty-five minutes later, both Hodgins and Jeff were pulling up.

'How the hell'd you get the warrant so fast?' Jeff greeted him.

'Caroline's super powers. You got it there?'

'Yeah, here you go. Very trusting of you to give me your email password,' Jeff grinned

'I'll change it. Hey Hodgins.'

Hodgins was climbing out of his car, pulling on plastic gloves. The three men went up to the front door, Booth knocking with the warrant in his other hand.

'FBI, open up!' Booth called, but he could tell in his gut Igor had done a runner. Booth forced the door open with his shoulder. _Wish Bones had been there to see that_. The house was dim and shady as the first time, and the three guys spread out. Jeff checked every room looking for the suspect, and sure enough, he found an indoor greenhouse growing drugs. 'This guy's looking at multiple charges just from this one room,' he called. Hodgins was searching the living room for anything incriminating, and Booth checked out the dining room, kitchen and the bedroom. The place was a dirty mess, and it was near impossible to find anything through all the junk.

'Booth. In here,' Hodgins called. 'I've got a wallet.' He was standing in front of an old desk in the hallway, the top drawer open. 'And it belongs to _Kraus_.'

Booth joined him looking into the drawer. 'I knew he was involved. And look, a set of keys, and let's see… Drivers' license, false name of course, but it's his photo... Ah-ha, bingo. We've got an address.'

'How did all his personal stuff end up here?' asked Jeff coming down the hall.

'He's pretty committed to keeping his secrets safe. None of this gear was on Kraus when we arrested him.'

'Wasn't he in this area when we found him on the traffic cameras?'

'Yeah,' Booth said, connecting the dots. 'I bet that he phoned Igor, drove past and threw his wallet and keys out the window to protect his information.'

'I heard the only thing he was really scared of was his friends, what they'd do if they thought he dobbed them in,' Jeff said.

'Who needs enemies,' Hodgins muttered, examining the keys. 'Huh, his keyring looks like a poisoned apple out of Snow White. Fitting for a guy who likes his poisons.'

Booth flipped his phone out and dialled.

'Agent Shaw speaking.'

'Shaw, hi, it's Booth. I've got an address for Yoseph Kraus, if you want to meet us there with a team.'

'What's the address?'

Booth took the wallet from Hodgins, who was squinting and holding it up to the light. '81 Lightdale St.'

'Ohhhkay, I'm just googling it… got it. It's two suburbs away from the source of the transceiver signal.'

'Great. We'll I'll see you over there.' They hung up. 'Okay, wrap it up, we're going to Kraus' place,' he called, since Jeff and Hodgins had wandered off to check out other rooms.

It was another 20 minutes til Booth and Hodgins were climbing back into the cars. Jeff was staying on in the house waiting for the cops to come take care of the drug lab and dust everything for prints.

Booth punched Kraus' address into the GPS (he'd since changed the voice from the woman to a man with a deep smooth accent).

'Take the next left,' the GPS said in a good impersonation of Barry White. Booth headed off that direction. By the time he was at Kraus' apartment, he had 'merged into traffic', 'taken the first exit' and 'continued on this road for one mile' in such a low timbre he wondered if the GPS was connected to the base on the stereo. He decided that the Barry White voice was a little creepy and to change it next time.

'Agent Booth!' called Genny, waving him over to a tall bock of apartments. 'He's on the ground floor, how he kept all this stuff in here I'll never know…'

The outside of the building was pretty old and ugly, but when he followed Genny into the apartment it was modern and aesthetic. At least it was until they found a locked room at the back that one of the agents had busted open.

Booth had never seen so many scary objects in one place. The walls were lined with heavy-duty shelves holding bottles of pills, syringes, blades, guns, and strange-looking objects that must have been at least fifty years old going by the amount of rust and tarnish. Kraus probably preferred them _with_ the rust, Booth thought morosely. Genny opened the door of a small bar-fridge, wearing gloves, and he stared inside to see dozens of vials, mostly labelled, sitting in test-tube racks. They were mostly clear, brown or yellowish in colour— Booth figured it was only in the movies that lab chemicals were technicoloured.

'So, we're going to get all this shipped off to the lab?' Genny asked him.

'Yes, but want Cam out here first with Hodgins to look at this stuff. I know we have good techs but trust me, no one's better at this stuff than my squints.'

Genny nodded. 'Sure Agent Booth. I'll call her if you like.' Booth nodded and went back to examining the room.

There was a bookcase packed with files and books, and Booth found himself drawn to it. There were a number of books that looked like they'd been read hundreds of times. Booth suspected some of them were banned books. The titles had words like 'slaughter', 'victimology' and 'pain-threshold', and Booth was horrified and unable to look away at the same time. There were advanced anatomy and chemistry textbooks, also looking well-used. It occurred to Booth that Kraus' understanding of the human body might have been nearly as good as Bones'. He found himself forcibly shutting down the corner of his mind that started imagining horrible things that Kraus might have done to Brennan. _Just deal with the evidence,_ he told himself. _Don't speculate._ There were a few books that appeared to be in Chinese or Russian, an encyclopaedia on poisons, and a book on acupuncture, which Booth suspected wasn't the therapeutic sort his grandma used to get.

As the techs moved around him photographing and taking notes on everything, Booth just stared at the shelf of files, neatly stacked in plain manilla folders. He didn't want to touch them, as if by touching them he could get a disease or some freaky poison absorbed through the skin…

'Hey, can I get some gloves?' he called. A tech brought him a pair. Booth suddenly felt horrible that while he wasn't even game to touch the files with his bare hands, Bones had been stripped and held underground for weeks and subject to potentially all of the horrors contained in these shelves.

He pulled out a file from the middle. It was marked 'Subject 426'. He shuddered at the thought that Kraus had tortured that many victims. Where were all these people—where had they come from, why wasn't this all over CNN? Of course they would have been over many years, and probably in different countries…

Booth slowly flicked through the pages, both captivated and horrified. There was a black-and-white photo of a man, asleep or unconscious and with a black eye. Then there was a picture of the same man, but horribly emaciated, clearly dying of starvation, and even though the pictures weren't in colour Booth felt sure the man's skin had turned a sort of yellow-grey tinge. He probably had blood poisoning, and there were angry inflamed poc marks all along his arms. The next page had a list of dates- "23rd March, 2003, 426 admitted." Each day was marked down the page and across from each was a bunch of shorthand that Booth could only guess at, though he was pretty sure it referred to the types of torture used on that day. The list of dates went on for three pages, until finally, "17 June – 426 deceased." Booth slammed the file shut and jammed it back into the bookshelf.

He stood for a minute focusing on getting the bile rising up his throat back into his stomach. Did one of these folders belong to Bones? He grabbed a whole stack of files and took them out to the living room, then sat on the floor out of the way so he could spread them out.

Not every victim's file was here- there were numbers 1, 7, 53 and 67, then about twenty more files ranging from '115' to '573'. He looked through the photos in every one, hoping and dreading that he might see Bones. Some of the victims were female, but none of them had been stripped, and none of them were her.

The files weren't just about victims—there were documents of purchase orders, clipped newspaper articles which Booth guessed were for potential victims, and then he found some files documenting places he'd used to hold the hostages.

Just like the victims' folders, they were many and varied, and not all in the same country. Some photos showed snippets of street signs, posters or papers written in Russian, German and Chinese. Some showed English, but of course that didn't prove they were in America. Booth spread them out, glancing up to check all the techs were keeping out of his way.

He lined up all the photos. Nearly all of them were in small, dark enclosed spaces. There were dozens—concrete jail cells with nothing in them but a toilet; filthy rooms apparently made of dirt, very like the cellar Booth had seen at the warehouse; there was a room that hardly showed up on the page because it was all white and blindingly lit; a room lined entirely with rotting, splintery wood. There were a couple of photos of outdoor locations. One was the disgusting bank of a severely polluted river. One looked like the roof of an abandoned building. And the final one Booth recognised as the cliff Broadsky had led him to when he rescued Brennan.

Booth shoved the papers back into their folders and took the whole stack out to the SUV, shoving through a few techs on his way out. He wasn't in the mood to be polite and all that crap. He wanted to get this lot to Sweets, so he could use it to find out exactly what happened to Bones.

Genny Shaw came out carrying a few more files. 'I thought you'd want all of them,' she said, handing them over. 'I'll let you know if we find any further information…'

'Yeah, that's great, Shaw, thanks.' Booth shut the passenger door where he'd stacked all the files and climbed into the driver's side, pulling out onto the road for the Hoover.


	58. Chapter 58

Booth could feel everyone's eyes on him. He was walking through the Hoover, carrying the stack of files up to Sweets' office, and you'd think he'd be able to do that in peace, but at the water-cooler-grape-vine that was the FBI bullpen, apparently he couldn't.

'What's the matter, never seen a guy carrying evidence before?' he snapped as he got into the elevator and the three junior agents in there immediately stopped their conversation. 'It's always something, if it's not about my partner it's about some damn case…'

He jabbed the button to Sweets' floor and everyone was silent until the lift stopped at that level. Booth stormed out and headed straight for Sweets' office.

'Oh, Agent Booth, Caroline Julian told me to expect you…'

'Oh, now Caroline's in on this too, fantastic…'

'Umm… What's going on?' asked the shrink. 'You're looking tense about something.'

'I'm not _tense_, I'm just sick of the whole damn building standing around gossiping instead of doing some real work and bringing in the killers! I mean, is it just me?'

'Well, it's kind of about the article…' Sweets held up the morning newspaper. Booth took it and read.

'"Agent Seeley Booth declined to comment after the shooting, when he fired a shot fatally wounding Kraus outside the Hoover yesterday afternoon,"' Booth read aloud. '"The woman Kraus had grabbed as a human shield, who prefers not to be identified, was released safely before he could choke her. Investigations into the man's criminal activity, and crimes committed by his associates are now in question, Agent Booth was unavailable to comment…"'

'It's just an article, Booth, the bullpen will be over it by tomorrow…'

'I never saw any reporters, how did they even get these photos?'

'A guy took pictures on his phone and was selling them to a journalist. I uh, saw the journo trying to find Dr Brennan so I told them to leave her alone, didn't give them her name…'

Booth sat down and dumped the files on the coffee table. Nothing but getting stuck in and making some progress was going to make him feel better. 'Okay, I get it. It'll blow over. You know… the thing that really frustrates me about all this, is that Kraus…' Booth scrubbed his hands over his face. 'You know, the worst thing about this whole mess is Kraus. We _needed_ him. I'm not sorry he's dead, and I'd shoot him again if he was threatening Bones. But he knew what happened. Now we have a third less chance of finding out what happened, and where to find Broadsky and McCullough. We could have used Kraus as leverage…'

'Well the other two are still out there, we'll find them,' Sweets said. 'We have… a lot of information we can use, we know how these guys think. We can find out what happened…'

The two men sat just there thinking, each lost in his own thoughts about how they were going to do this. Finally Booth grabbed a file and handed it to Sweets. 'These were all at Kraus' apartment. There are files on his victims, and all this other stuff is records and locations… We're going to go through them and find anything we can about where Kraus was based and what he did.'

Sweets flipped through the first folder. 'Okay, how about you take the locations, I'll take the victims.'

.

Booth ended up leaving most of the files for Sweets—he'd handed the files with information on potential hostage locations to Genny Shaw's team. By four that afternoon Jeff and the FBI techs were back with photos and evidence from Marshall Igor's house. Booth sat in his office flicking through the report. Shaw was with him, debriefing what had happened at Kraus' apartment.

'We found Kraus' prints, of course, on just about everything. There were a few different prints on some of the chemicals in the back room. We don't have anything to compare them to but McCullough would be the most likely candidate.'

'There was a left-handed gun found at Igor's,' Booth said from his own file, 'look at that, also covered in Igor's prints. That all but confirms him as the other sniper apart from me who shot Kraus. I'd really like to know why he did that.'

'Did the gun match the bullet they found?'

'Yeah, Jeff had it taken straight over to the lab and Angela used her computer to match up the striations.'

'Kraus' place was swept for electronic transmitters, we found a stash of bug-equipment in a drawer but none of it was in use. Have you heard how the autopsy's going?'

'Yeah, Cam phoned me on her way to Kraus' apartment. She said Hodgins was working on soil samples from his shoes and clothes he but hasn't come up with anything yet. Apart from that, they've just checked the bullet wounds, and he's going back to the morgue.'

'Oh. Okay. So what's happening next on dealing with Marshall Igor?'

'Angela and Clark are going to try and work out where the second sniper was shooting from, using the trajectory of the bullet from the wound and the photo from the paper of Kraus collapsing.'

'You've got the science down pat, Sir.'

'Ha. The squints wouldn't say that. But we might find some more evidence if we can get that sniping spot. I tell you, that guy is on my most wanted list right now, at number three, right after Broadsky.'

'Isn't Broadsky at number one?'

'Nope, McCullough.'

They sat quietly for a while, both poring over the various photos and evidence reports. Sweets rang and told Booth he was doing some further investigation into some of the files. By six o'clock, Booth decided it was time to go get Brennan.


	59. Chapter 59

Daisy Wick wasn't on rotation this week, but she'd left a pair of pink high heels at the lab from last time. And she was surprising Lancelot with a date tonight—and the pink heels were a must. _Little details are important_, she thought to herself. _Everything has to be perfect—that's what Dr Brennan would say, like when we're calibrating a skeleton. Everything has to be just perfect for my Lancelot._ That's why she'd put on her favourite silver necklace with the butterfly pendant, her sparkly hair clip and her favourite undies with 'Princess' stamped across the back in glitter.

She skipped into the lab, the guards staring at her with raised eyebrows (_Huh. They look sad, but I'm sure they're happy to see me!_) and made her way to the intern's table in one of the smaller offices. Sure enough, there were her pink heels. _Can't believe I left them here!_ she thought, then picked up the newspaper someone had left there thismorning. Probably one of the guards or techs, Dr Brennan didn't fill her mind with superfluous fluff from the media, she was properly focussed on the scientific and academic worlds. _She's so inspirational_, thought Daisy. She picked it up anyway and turned the first page.

'_Eeeeeeeee!'_

Hodgins looked up from the evidence he was unpacking onto the examination table. A hell of a lot of evidence—two FBI techs were bringing loads in behind him. 'Is that Daisy Wick's voice?' he asked.

Clark looked over to the Intern's desk. 'Yeah, that is definitely Daisy Wick.'

They watched Daisy charge out of the room with the paper in her hand, and Angela and Brennan stick their heads out of Angela's office where they'd been playing with Michael. 'This is going to end badly,' muttered Hodgins, snapping off his gloves in case it looked like he should go and intervene.

'Daisy?' asked Angela as she and Brennan came out. 'What's going on?'

'Did you see this?' She held up page three so they could read it.

'"Fatal shooting on the steps of the Hoover",' Angela read. 'Oh. Um, Daisy, maybe you should go—'

'It talks about Agent Booth, look!' Daisy effused, pointing at a small inset photo of Booth standing over Kraus. 'Is this one of the men who—you know,' she tilted her head toward Brennan as if she wasn't standing right next to her hearing the whole conversation.

'Daisy—'

'"The man was wanted across nine states under different aliases for alleged acts of terrorism and authorities have advised of unconfirmed international incidents under his birth name Yoseph Kraus"—'

'Daisy,' said Hodgins loudly, hurrying over to the three women. 'Are you supposed to be here today?'

Brennan shifted uncomfortably. Even though Kraus was dead, knowing today he was in the lab was keeping her flighty and on edge. It was taking the constant distraction efforts of Hodgins, Angela and Michael for her to hold it together. And now she was remembering yesterday.

Hodgins was glaring at Daisy but Angela stared concernedly at Brennan, as she took a few steps backwards out of the circle and briskly walked into her office. Hodgins glanced at Angela. 'You wanna go with her?'

Angela watched Brennan move purposefully across the lab, looking as normal as if she was back from lunch with Booth. Actually, after lunch with Booth she was a bit more dreamy. Maybe, as if she was back from a crime scene.

'She's gonna lock the door,' Angela predicted, and there was a soft slam and a click. She rounded furiously on Daisy. 'What in the hell do you think you're doing?'

Daisy held up her pink heels. 'I forgot these, got a date with Lancelot—'

'I don't care if you have a date with Prince Harry, I don't ever want to see you in here if you're not working,' Angela exploded. 'Do you know how hard we've been trying to keep her away from Kraus's body?' Daisy looked confused. '_Up there?_' Angela clarified, pointing at the platform.

'Ohh,' Daisy said, still a bit confused. 'I guess Dr Brennan doesn't want to work on those remains…'

'Of course she doesn't, she doesn't want to be on the same _planet_ as those remains. Now take your shoes and newspaper and _get out_.'

'The newspaper's not mine—'

'Just go, Daisy,' Hodgins said diplomatically, holding up a hand to Angela, who was looking downright dangerous. He stared at Daisy pointedly and she finally got the message and went out. Angela closed her eyes and let out a long breath.

'Count to ten, right?' she said.

Hodgins shrugged and nodded. 'I used to have a rubber band on my wrist, just flick when I wanted to rip someone's head off.'

'I'd rip off more than just her head,' Angela said darkly.

'You gonna go check on her?' he asked, indicating Bones' office.

'Well I'll try to… but when Brennan's like this, she can hunker down in there for days.' The two of them stood staring at the locked door and closed blinds. She set off for the door and Hodgins made his way back onto the platform.

.

'Bren, Sweetie?'

Brennan could hear Ange knocking on the door. She hadn't bothered to turn on the light in her office—she just wanted to get safely behind her locked door before anyone could see her come apart. She just didn't want anyone to watch, and she could feel her control slip by the second.

She knew that it was coming, but the force of the flashback had her curling up on the floor. _The door's shut, the door's shut_, she told herself. _No one's in here_.

But that somehow made it worse. She was alone. She was suddenly strapped to a table, and was squeezing her eyes shut against a blindingly bright halogen lamp. She jerked her arms and legs trying to break out of the restraints but it only caused pain—both sharp and aching, and deep, as if she had fractures in her bones that were only partially healed.

'Now, this is only going to take a minute,' someone was saying. She could smell someone's foul breath masked with peppermint. She tried opening her eyes, and jerked her hand uselessly away but he caught her wrist and pulled on it painfully.

She was screaming, but no sound was coming out. There was a burning sensation in her throat, and her head began to swim. The light was hot, her forehead broke out in sweat. She didn't know what she was wearing but she was aware of a very thin sheet over her, sticking to her in places.

A mask was strapped onto her face. She bucked her head as much as she could and tried to scream but large hands grabbed her by the hair and forced the mask on. She tried to hold her breath, having no idea what was connected to the mask, but her body's innate need for oxygen won out and she found herself slipping out of consciousness…

Suddenly she was awake again, and there was a man smiling down at her. He had a shock of black hair and round glasses, and he was saying something but her ears weren't working. All she could hear was a loud ringing. The man was Kraus, but she felt a sudden sharp pain to her head and then the face became someone else.

This time it was the elderly man. She felt herself begin to hyperventilate. She had to get away, but she was completely paralysed- the only thing she could move was her eyes.

The elderly man was laughing, looking across her at someone else. She tried to move her eyes to see but she was facing the wrong way.

Now she was sitting up—or sitting down, the concrete floor felt like ice against her bare skin, but it helped to numb the stinging wounds all over her. She could move again and she felt tears leak out of her eyes as she moved all her limbs, relieved to be able to control something, however small.

'Bones.' It was Booth's voice. Was he here?

'Booth,' she said, her voice almost inaudible, her throat dry and scratchy. '_Booth._' She screwed her eyes shut and tried to imagine him. Even though it wasn't real. She just wanted him there so much—even if he couldn't save her. She just wanted him to be with her.

Someone hit her with… a table leg? It was wooden, and rather than fight or try to move she simply fell over onto one side. She looked up at the person holding it. It was Booth.

Then she was screaming again, and Booth was shoving a gag into her mouth. She saw Broadsky standing behind Booth and smiling. Booth's face was frightening- she'd never seen that expression on his face before. He pushed her against the wall and brought a rough bag down over her head. He landed another blow on her and everything went black.

Brennan groped at the floor of her office. _My office_. She tried to remember that she was home, at the lab, but now her whole body was shaking. Someone knocked at her office door and she was immediately certain that it was Kraus. Even though he was dead. But he couldn't be dead. She wanted him to be dead so badly, maybe she'd imagined it…

She was shaking too hard to bear her own weight standing up so she crawled over to the couch, sitting up with her back against it, holding onto one of the cushions.

She tried to call for Booth, but something inside stopped her. She wasn't sure she wanted him to come. That image, of him standing over her with a club, that strange expression on his face… She felt like all the physical things she remembered had actually happened—she couldn't form words, she was sweating and her muscles seemed to have seized up. She scrunched her eyes up and rolled onto her side, clutching the pillow to her chest. She'd just have to lie here and wait this out.

.

Angela had waited twenty minutes, but after calling out for her friend several times and hearing nothing in response, she felt it was reasonable to get hold of a key and check she wasn't hurt. The lock clicked and she cast a stark shadow into the room. She quickly flicked on the light. Brennan was in front of the couch, visibly shaking. Angela had thought Brennan was past the shaking, and was actually doing pretty well. The next time she saw Daisy…

'Bren, Sweetie, it's just me, honey. Are you okay?'

Brennan opened her eyes. The light felt overly bright, just like in her flashback. If it even actually was a flashback. She knew Booth hadn't really been there. He couldn't have been. Could he?

'Do you want to drink something? Hang on, here's your water bottle…' Angela handed her the bottle and she took a sip, more because Angela given it to her than because she was thirsty.

'I'm… okay now,' Brennan said, making sure she sounded firm about this. 'It's fine, don't worry.' She hardly knew what words were coming out, but her tone of voice made it clear she wanted Ange to back off.

'Sweetie, I can take you home if you want.'

'No. I'm just… I'm gonna wait here for Booth.'

Angela looked at her appraisingly. 'He's going to be hours, it's only two thirty. You should at least lie down, try and get some sleep.'

Brennan gave an involuntary shudder at the thought of sleeping. She was almost certain she'd have a nightmare or a flashback if she lay here in the dark. 'Can I sleep on your couch?' she asked.

'Yeah, sure. I'll give Booth a call, let him know what happ-'

'No!' Brennan burst out.

'He should know, Sweetie. You remembered something, didn't you.'

'I—I don't want him to worry. It's nothing.'

'Bren, it's not nothing—'

'Promise me you won't tell him.'

'Brennan, why? He only wants to help.'

She shivered at the memory of seeing him stand over her. She felt a confusing mix of wanting to clutch at his legs, and recoil all at once. She had wanted him to be there so badly, and then there he was, only it wasn't the Booth she knew... But it wasn't real. It couldn't be real.

Angela sighed at her stubbornness. 'Look, if you don't want me to tell him, I won't. But I'm going to keep on saying _you_ should.' Brennan made no response so Angela took her hand and pulled her up and off to her office. 'Michael needs to be fed and then have a nap. You can read him one of your anthropology journals, I reckon it'd put him straight to sleep…'


	60. Chapter 60

Booth finally finished up for the day and headed to the lab for Bones. It had been a long day, and as much as he wanted to put everything into this case, the last couple of days were catching up with him. He needed a long night's sleep.

'Bones,' he called, striding into the lab. A lot of the assistant staff had left for the day. Angela's light was still on so Booth headed to her office.

'Hi Ange. Have you seen—oh there she is.' He smiled indulgently at the sight of Brennan curled up on Angela's couch. Michael was in a bassinet between the couch and Angela, though Booth thought Brennan was cuter.

'Bones, time to wake up,' he said, leaning over and gently shaking her shoulder. 'We're going to go home, get you some food and then you can go back to sleep.'

Brennan had had a dreamless and flashback-free sleep, but when Booth leaned over her, his face somewhat obscured to her sleep-fogged vision, she automatically jerked back.

'Bones?' Booth asked, surprised at this. She must have been dreaming. 'Were you having a nightmare?'

'No,' she said, too quickly. She swung her legs onto the floor and straightened her clothes. Angela and Booth could both tell she was switching into her cool, clinical professional mode. 'Are we going home?'

Booth studied her for a moment, but there was no crack in her armour. She looked up at him almost defiantly. Daring him to challenge her.

'Yeah, we're going home,' he said. Sometimes, getting to the bottom of things with Bones was just an endurance race. Eventually she would crack. Booth was up to the challenge. The thing that concerned him though was that this dynamic had been them, several years ago. About six or seven years ago. Brennan now was soft and brave, not harsh and impenetrable. Something was shifting, and it wasn't good.

Bones got up and picked up her bag, and walked out towards the parking garage without a backwards glance. Angela looked at Booth apologetically. She seriously wanted to play the 'bff knows best' card and tell Booth… though, he could probably already guess she was feeling disturbed, and it wasn't as though Ange knew herself what Brennan had experienced.

Booth followed her out to the car and unlocked it remotely. Bones climbed in and buckled up, prim and proper, and flawlessly masked. 'How was your day?' he asked. He wasn't going to prod. It would be useless anyway.

'Fine,' she answered, looking out the window.

'Okay.' Booth left it at that— he knew when to call it a day, and he could see she needed some time and space.

The rest of the drive was comfortably silent. Maybe 'comfortable' was a stretch, but they both managed to stay calm and polite. When they got to Booth's, Brennan slipped out and went straight upstairs ahead of him, using the spare key he'd given her to let them in. Booth heard the bathroom door click shut as he put his gun in the safe. He put on the sports channel, just for some ambient noise to drown out all the things that weren't being said.

Neither of them was really hungry. Booth made himself a sandwich and slipped into the shower when Brennan got out. She wouldn't look up at him but kept her eyes on the ground. By the time he was out, Bones was asleep, or at least pretending. He flicked off the lights, leaving on the low-light of the lamp, and fell asleep almost at once. Brennan kept her eyes open all night.

.

Bright and early on Monday morning, Angela, Cam and Hodgins were standing around a low rooftop about half a block from the Hoover. Half a dozen FBI techs were measuring the area and taking photos.

'This place would match the trajectory of the wound given the way Kraus was standing when he died,' Angela said, holding an ipad with a 3D image rendering from the Angelator.

'Yeah, I think we've got a winner,' Hodgins agreed. He was stooped down over a pile of bird poop. Angela laughed when she saw what he was doing.

'Do you really think you're gonna find answers in pigeon poop? I mean, the birds didn't eat anything. Igor's not a dead body.'

'Nah, I just like examining bird poop,' Hodgins said with a big grin.

Angela rolled her eyes. 'Boys.'

'What we _can_ do is scan the area for particulates and match them up to Igor's house…' Hodgins said.

'Yeah, but what's the point? We already know who fired the second shot. We just need to find Igor. And his house is the one place he won't be.'

'Guys,' Cam said. 'Have a look at this.' She showed them a virtual trajectory of the bullet on her laptop. 'This shows what sort of a shot would have been needed to actually hit the target. This guy is good. I mean, not as good as Booth, but he's an excellent shot. I'm uh, gonna tell myself my car has bulletproof glass on the way back to the lab…'

.

Booth was in his office, poring once again over the location files from Kraus' apartment. He'd been using Angela's software to match up some of the photos with shots from google earth, traffic cameras, and anything else that came up in the searches. Nothing had turned up so far but he was determined to find at least one lead out of this that could provide him with some answers.

Brennan was at the lab again, just in her office but Clark Edison was keeping an eye on her. Booth had pulled him aside and told him to call if anything happened. Out of all the squinterns, Edison was the one Booth would most readily trust with Bones. He had his doctorate so he wasn't as timid and hero-worshipping as most of them were. He was older than most of the others too, plus he could talk back to Bones nearly as well as Cam or Hodgins. Being able to handle Brennan in her difficult moods was sort of a prerequisite for looking out for her.

Around lunchtime Jeff called through to Booth saying he had the editor of Broasdsky's elite gun magazine on the phone. He put Booth through.

'Agent Booth, I believe?' said a bright-sounding male voice.

'That's me. Thanks for getting back to us.'

'That's quite alright. Uh, the message I got was about a Jacob Broadsky, something to do with a federal investigation. What was it you needed from us?'

'Look, anything you have would be appreciated. Broadsky is wanted on multiple murder charges. We're looking for contact details of his you might have, any info you have on purchases or weapons dealers… anything that could help us track him down.'

'I see. Broadsky is a freelance contributor to our publication, so we really aren't in a position to give you his details…'

'Look, I understand you don't want to lose a columnist but these are serious crimes we're investigating. I respect what you do, the magazine is cutting edge but it has to be kept within the law. You understand. I would hate to get a warrant on you and shut things down but if you don't cooperate I'm going to be forced—'

'Okay, okay,' the guy said. 'It's just, it's my job on the line, you know? But if we're talking serious charges, I mean, the boss will understand. You might wanna write me a note or something.'

'What information do you have?'

'Well there's… Look, this isn't even confirmed, it's just a rumour, a few comments he made when he dropped the last article in. He's very into precision gadgets, the latest technology, just like the magazine is, and there's this developer in LA who he's been in contact with. He didn't say what the machine was, but this guy? I'd say whatever it is, we're talking big money. Over a million dollars for the stuff he designs. Jake just kept talking about this investment he was making.'

'Investment.'

'Well, yeah, I mean—and look, I'm not in a position to judge, I mean we just produce a quality magazine, we don't go knocking on people's door asking how they intend to use their weapons—'

'Okay, fine. What do you mean an investment?'

'Well, that's—it would mean that whatever he's going to use the machine for, it will make him his money back. He's got something big lined up, you know? Like I said, I ask no questions, tell no lies—'

'That's great, thanks. Can you give me the developer's number?'

'Look, I can give it to you man, but I've gotta let you know, you'll be swimming upstream on this one. This guy's just like any ex-pat with a penchant for weaponry. He's paranoid, at least a little. He's not going to just hand out information.'

'He will if I arrest him.'

'Okay, okay—look, just don't tell him you heard from us. We just want to stay out of things, you know? Live a quiet life?'

'That's great. But if you really mean that about a quiet life, you'd better contact me if you hear any more information about Broadsky, otherwise you'll have a lot more than just me to worry about, there'll be cops and newspapers too.'

'Yeah, sure, I'll call,' the guy said tightly. He gave Booth the number and hung up.

.

Booth was thinking of going over to get Brennan and go out to lunch. He didn't know exactly what was going on with her, but he wanted to make the effort to still be there, and not let her moods throw him off. Leaving all the files in his office, he headed down to the SUV, started the engine and drove out into the sunshine.

It was a really nice day. _Definitely need to take her out_. There wasn't much traffic since it was about one pm, so Booth cruised along just enjoying the drive.

His phone started to ring. He wanted to ignore it but it was probably important. Probably someone from the Hoover with new information. He grabbed it and answered.

'Booth.'

'Ah, so this is the famous Agent Booth.'

He slammed on the brakes, causing a few cars behind him to sound their horns, then pulled onto the shoulder of the road in an extremely bad parallel-park. 'Who is this?'

'I'm sure you're aware of who I am.'

The man's voice was polished and deep. Booth couldn't pick where his accent was from- it seemed to be a composite of American, English and something else. And he was right—Booth knew exactly who he was.

'Victor McCullough.'


	61. Chapter 61

'Oh well done, well done,' said McCullough, sounding so genuinely congratulatory it was unnerving. 'And now you will ask me why I am calling.'

'Okay, fine. Why are you calling?' said Booth.

'I am calling to ask you a question, something I am curious to know.'

'What's that.'

'I am wondering, why you killed my colleague, Yoseph Kraus.'

McCullough spoke without a trace of sadness, anger or disapproval— like he was commenting on someone's nice outfit, not a man's death.

'Why I killed him,' Booth repeated.

'Yes. Why did you kill him?'

'Because he threatened a civilian,' Booth said. Wasn't _he_ supposed to be asking the questions?

'Oh, wonderful, wonderful! Exactly what I wanted to hear,' exclaimed McCullough in delight.

Booth furrowed his eyebrows. _What the hell?_

'You know something about the second shot,' he countered. 'You sent Marshall Igor to take Kraus out at the same time. You received a message, that Kraus was going to be moved to another holding facility.'

'Oh, I don't know I'm so clever as to orchestrate all that,' the old man said with supercilious modesty. 'But I did receive your message. Bless you for reaching out to a poor, lonely old man.'

Booth felt manipulated. McCullough was trying to get into his head, to confuse and disturb him. And it was bloody working. _Dammit_.

'I want to talk to you, face to face,' Booth told him. With Sweets, and Gordon Gordon preferably, and maybe a SWAT team. Or the coastguard. 'I want to know what you did to my partner.'

'Oh, Temperance. Oh she was lovely.'

Booth felt his blood boil. 'I want to know what you did.'

'Ah, of course you do. But would that really make things better?'

'I…'

'Curiosity, Agent Booth, you and I have that in common. Each of us is in search of information—me, for pleasure, and you, to play the hero.'

Booth didn't say anything. He could sense that this conversation was just a game to McCullough. He was pulling Booth's strings, orchestrating his every response. And Booth was falling straight into line.

'I would like to see your gunmanship in person. I have heard great things about your abilities. Such a shame to put a skill like that to waste.'

Booth didn't take the bait. 'I want to meet up with you. Give me a time and place.'

'Oh, a time and place,' he said, with the anticipatory air of someone opening a delicious box of chocolates. 'Well since you have not met me, but you have met my friend Mr Igor, I shall send him to fetch you.'

'Wait, what? I'm not going to follow—'

'This will be my last communication until I see you. It was a privilege to meet you, Agent Booth.'

The line went dead.

Booth sat there reeling, not even noticing that he was blocking off two cars trying to park behind him. For weeks, Booth had believed he needed to talk to this man to sort everything out. Now that plan felt horribly wrong.

The cars behind him started beeping, and Booth finally moved forward, checked his mirrors and merged back into the traffic.

He knew he should call Sweets, debrief what had just happened, but he wanted time to settle and process. He flicked on a heavy metal station—he just wanted something loud, and cruised toward a long motorway so he could get up some speed and burn some serious gas.

.

Brennan was glad the body was gone. All of yesterday, she'd felt her skin crawl every time she saw another scientist walk past, or Hodgins or Angela excuse themselves to go up on the platform. Or any time she remembered Kraus. He skin was crawling pretty constantly—in fact she didn't know she'd have been able to stick it out if she hadn't had baby Michael to hold.

She was besotted with the baby. She didn't know why. Anthropologically, adults were programmed to want to protect infants and children from harm, for the continuation of the species. She wasn't his primary caregiver, but she felt she could become that for him, hypothetically, if he needed it. Angela walked in and smiled at the sight of her swaying and singing to him.

'Oh,' Brennan said. 'I was, oh…'

'You have a beautiful voice, Bren. You should sing more often,' Angela smiled. She came over to her son and gave him a kiss him on the head complete with sound effects, then dangled her fingers above him to grab onto.

'It was just a tune, I don't know the words,' said Brennan.

'Well you should learn some more lullabies. Look how happy he is now. He loves music—you should have heard our place when my dad was over. He was playing everything from blues to metal and Michael loved all of it.'

'There's a good chance he will inherit the qualities and strengths of his parents and grandparents,' Brennan said softly, as Michael gripped her thumb in his tiny fist.

'Uh, Brennan? Your phone's ringing,' Hodgins said, poking his head in the door.

'Oh, thanks.' It was like snapping out of a daydream. 'Here, Ange…'

'You can babysit any time, Sweetie.'

Brennan threw a smile over her shoulder as she ran into her office to take the call. 'Brennan.'

'Bones, hey it's me.'

'Hi.'

'I'm coming over to take you to lunch, okay? I'll be there in 20 minutes.'

There was no good reason why, but this phone call suddenly made her feel like Booth was taking her on a date.

'Okay.' She found herself fiddling with the hem of her skirt with one hand. She never fidgeted like that unless she was nervous. But she couldn't be nervous, was she? She'd been living with Booth for nearly six weeks, and there was no one she trusted more, or who knew her better than him. She wasn't _nervous_ around him.

But things had become more complicated, recently. She was sure Booth wanted a romantic relationship with her at some point, but not yet. She wasn't shy of him, but she felt… overexposed. She'd never been more vulnerable around someone ever, than in these last few weeks with Booth. She didn't really have a choice but to trust and latch onto him, but it wounded her pride. She cared about what he thought of her. Maybe it was a knee-jerk response to a long time of being powerless, but she wanted her walls back up. She wanted distance, not because she wanted to be distant from Booth but… She didn't know how to navigate through this. She didn't want to push him away, but she badly needed to just be _her_. Whoever that was.

Booth had ended the call but she stood still holding the phone, listening to the engaged tone and staring at the screen where it read _last answered call: Booth_.


	62. Chapter 62

Booth was feeling a bit less unnerved after racing along the highway for half an hour. He put his phone on speaker and dialled Sweets. He had to get this thing with McCullough out of his head and into words. He was just gonna play it over and over until he talked about it.

'This is Sweets.'

'Hey, it's Booth,' he said, turning left at the lights. 'I just had a phone call from McCullough.'

'Wow, seriously? Okay, that's, wow—what did he say?'

'He wanted to know why I shot Kraus, and then he said he'd send Igor to find me, so I can meet with him, face-to-face.'

'Wow… wow. That sounds, dangerous.'

'Yeah… I don't know if anything he said was sincere. When he asked about Kraus he told me he was just _curious_. I don't know what the hell to think. I mean this guy is criminally insane.'

'He's not criminally insane.'

'What? Sweets, this guy tortured. My partner. For _weeks_.'

'Oh, I know, I just meant— He's a psycho_path_, not psychotic.'

'Huh?'

'Criminally insane means psychotic, it means someone is out of touch with reality and doesn't have full control over their actions. These guys, they know what they're doing is wrong. They just don't care.'

Booth let that sit for a minute. He was just thinking about this plan to meet up. He didn't even have a timeframe.

'I don't have a lot of choice but to go with him, I mean how else will I get information? But it's like walking to your own funeral.'

'Look, Booth, any situation at the moment you have contact with him, McCullough is going to have the upper hand. I'm sorry but he's just smart, he's brilliant at throwing people off. You've seen what Kraus was like in the interrogation room, how you couldn't get two words of truth strung together, but Kraus isn't half as good as McCullough will be. You need to be extremely cautious. He could mess you up.'

'Great, thanks. So what am I supposed to do?'

'I… I really don't have an answer.'

'Well that's great.'

'All I can do is tell you what to expect. Don't underestimate him, and don't let anything surprise you.'

Booth blew out a long breath. 'So I go with Igor.'

'If I were in your position, I'd be getting a bug or a GPS chip from the tech department before you go anywhere. And make sure someone's watching your back.'

'You wanna come along?'

'Er…'

'C'mon Sweets, I'm in way over my head. I need your shrinky brains here.'

'….Er… '

'You hear that? I just said I need you. You're never going to hear me say that again, seriously…'

'Okay,' Sweets said finally. 'Did I just agree? I can't believe I just agreed. I'm going _to_ a psychopath, of my own free will.'

'Too right you are. Hey thanks, Sweets, I owe you one.'

'Don't thank me too soon, I might just make him angry.'

'This guy? Nah,' said Booth. Now that he wasn't going in alone, he felt the need for a little bravado. 'I don't think he _gets_ angry, he just gets twisted.'

'Comforting.'

'Thanks a million Sweets.'

Booth hung up as the Jeffersonian gardens came into view. They always made him think of Bones. The lawns were always immaculate, and the roses perfumed the air if you walked through on a still day. If Booth walked through it in summer, he always went close to the fountain so he got the spray of cool water on his face. Bones said he was crazy but she laughed and smiled every time he did it.

'Hey, Bones,' Booth said five minutes later, breezing into Angela's office.

'Oh. Hi,' she said, feeling like he'd come from nowhere. She hadn't been able to get him out of her head since he called, and she felt self-conscious, as if he'd be able to tell what she was thinking. She wasn't ready. She wasn't cool and indifferent and collected yet, but it was too late now.

She walked over to Michael's bassinette and laid him down in it on his back, smiling as he refused to let go of her finger until she tickled him. He made a cute gurgling sound and Brennan felt her eyes prick. She stepped away from the baby and grabbed her coat.

'We going now?' she asked, as matter-of-factly as she could muster.

'Sure are Bones. After you.'

They walked out to the SUV without saying much, and Brennan hurried to open her own door, smiling brightly at Booth as she did so. They were both in a pretty good mood as Booth headed off to the diner.

'So Bones,' Booth said as they headed into the diner and took their usual seats. 'I was going to take you to this nice place that does these little caramel tarts, but I got held up and I figured you'd be hungry. But we can go there after if you want.'

Brennan smiled, not really wanting to make a decision like that right now. Caramel… caramel was good. But right now she wanted a milkshake. She ordered one from the waitress and Booth asked for his regular order of coffee, fries and a burger.

'You're reminding me of Parker, getting a milkshake,' Booth smiled. He was being very charming today, leaning across the table and twinkling his eyes at her. Brennan leaned back a fraction and slid an inch down in her chair.

'I like caramel, but for some reason I just needed vanilla and milk,' she said, trying very hard not to meet his eyes. She wanted to stay in control of things, and swooning over Booth was _not_ control.

'See, look at you, making decisions. Didn't you say that the choice between chocolate and vanilla could have started a war, it was so hard?'

Brennan smiled. 'I may have said that, but I was on a lot of painkillers.'

'Yeah, yeah, excuses,' grinned Booth.

Their food arrived and they ate quietly, with Brennan putting a lot of effort into not looking at Booth, which he noticed with both concern and amusement. He pushed the plate of fries towards her and waggled his eyebrows, and she smiled indulgently and started eating them. 'This must be some kind of record for us,' he said, 'I'm eating salad, and you're eating junkfood.'

'I don't know that a burger really counts as salad.'

'Sure it does, look—lettuce, tomato, even grated carrot. Rabbit food.'

Brennan finished her milkshake and ended up stealing most of Booth's fries, which Booth seemed very happy about. 'So, do you feel like dessert?'

'Well technically a milkshake is very like a dessert.'

'Yeah, but it's more about the milk, less about the sugar. I'm gonna take you, once you try this you'll be ruined for every other type of caramel.'

'That sounds bad,' Brennan frowned. '"Ruined" is bad.'

'No, trust me, it's good. Come on,' he pulled her up and grabbed her coat, striding out to the SUV with her staring after him slightly stunned. She ran to catch up and beat him to the car, which for some reason seemed very important. She wasn't going to be a tag-along.

'Okay, now I've been here once before, last year with Parker, but I'm gonna need the GPS for this one…'

He typed in the address and they set off, now in the middle of peak hour traffic, but for some reason neither of them was too stressed about it. Booth didn't even suggest using the siren just to get there quicker, which he often did and Bones would strongly veto on moral grounds. Unless it was her who was running late. Then it might possibly be okay.

'Northwestern Washington, 6.7 miles,' said the deep Barry White voice, making the speakers vibrate with bass.

'Oh man, I was going to change that…'

'I like it,' Brennan piped up.

'Yeah but you're a girl, you're supposed to like it. I think it's kind of creepy…'

Brennan shrugged and turned to stare out the window.

Booth was just in a good mood to have her there. She wasn't ignoring him or being overly moody so he counted that as a good sign. They were going out to dessert, and now that Sweets had promised to be his backup for the next leg of this awful case, he felt relieved enough to allow himself a night of food and fun.

What he hadn't told Brennan was that the shop was near a major fairground, which at the moment was full to bursting of ferris wheels, demountable roller coasters and bumper cars. And showbags, he always took Parker to the show bags. He tried to imagine Brennan in the showbag pavilion, getting all excited about the anthropological significance of Bertie Beetle.

Dusk was falling as they pulled up outside a cute little bakery. He didn't know how he'd managed to get a park but he flashed Brennan a smile and got out, breathing in the scent of corn dogs and donuts.

'Booth, this is a fair,' Brennan said in confusion. 'Aren't we going to—'

'Get caramel tarts? Yep, right in here, come on…'

He swung open the door and ordered two tarts, shoving his in his mouth as soon as he could. Brennan shot him a half-hearted eye-roll, and nibbled at hers. 'Oh my gosh, this is amazing,' she said.

'I know, right? I could live off this stuff it's so good.'

'Well, actually you couldn't—'

'Eat your dessert, Bones,' Booth grinned, pushing the door open and heading outside.

'So what are we—' Brennan started, but Booth's phone rang loudly and he stopped to answer it.

'Booth.'

'Hello, Agent Booth.'

Booth glanced at Bones. She could tell by his expression that this wasn't a social call. 'Who is this?'

'You remember me, Marshall?'

'Oh, yeah. You ah, have an indoor drug greenhouse and assassinated Yoseph Kraus, I definitely remember you.'

Brennan stepped in a bit closer to Booth to hear the conversation over the loud noise of the carnival.

'I'm calling to give you directions on where to meet Victor McCullough.'

'Really. He arranged this with you?'

'Yes, it's set up for tomorrow evening. Mr Victor would like to meet you at the docks at eleven pm, he insists that you come alone—'

'Yeah, you know what though, that sounds a lot like a set-up to have me shot and dumped in the water. How about you get back to your boss, and have him arrange a place and time that sounds even remotely like you're not trying to kill me.'

'Mr Victor insists—'

'Booth,' hissed Brennan, pointing across the street to a black sedan with the windows down. Booth turned to look and recognised Marshall Igor sitting in the driver's seat.

'You know what, how about you just take me to him right now, what do you say?' Booth said into the phone, walking purposefully toward the car.

'I'm sorry, this is a one-time offer, I will not contact you again—'

'Booth!' Brennan said, as Igor opened the car door and took off on foot towards the thronging crowds of the fair. Booth grabbed Brennan's hand.

'Come on we can't lose him!' he yelled, tearing after Igor into the crowds. Brennan dropped the rest of her dessert and tried to keep close. They were weaving their way through masses of people at a frustratingly slow pace. She felt Booth get a firmer grip on her wrist which was almost painful.

'Can you see him?' she called. Booth didn't reply but kept storming through the crowd, towing her behind. Brennan knew she had to be slowing him down. She thought about telling him to leave her and run but there was no point. There was no chance of him doing that.

The crowd thinned out and Booth could see Igor hurtling past a fairy floss stand. He lurched forward, Brennan trying her hardest to keep up. Igor pushed his way through a line of people waiting for fairy floss and knocked into the machine. It toppled off its stand onto the ground and people screamed and jumped away from the broken glass and the whirring exposed engine.

The fair grounds were enormous. It was taking all of Booth's strength to tow Brennan and keep Igor in sight. The guy was fast, and he was skinny. He slipped easily between people while Booth had to shove them out of the way.

Igor disappeared for a moment behind a tent. Booth ducked in after him, avoiding stacks of animal feed and hay for a petting zoo. Brennan stumbled and Booth jerked backwards for a moment before she regained her balance. Igor slipped out of the tent and they tore after him.

The main stadium was right ahead with thousands of people pouring in for a concert inside. Igor disappeared into the crowd.

'He's over there!' Brennan yelled, pointing at a man going against the crowd. Booth set off again, managing to get to about ten-people-behind. The doors to the hall were being opened and ear-splitting bass was making the floor seem to vibrate.

'Sounds like Lady Gaga,' Booth said into Brennan's ear as he used a shoulder to barge through.

'Like who?' Brennan asked, but her voice was drowned out by the crowd roaring as the next band came onstage.

'Over there!' Booth yelled, but Brennan could only see his mouth move. Igor had broken out of the mass of people and was running down a corridor. Booth shoved through a few more people, Brennan in his slipstream. Igor was disappearing. Booth pelted after him, losing his grip on Brennan's hand but he could see her close behind so kept running. There were double doors at the end of the corridor. Igor ran through them and they shut hitting Booth who flung them wide enough for Bones to follow too. The noise of the crowd inside and around the building made it impossible to hear anything. There was the muffled voice of an announcer and the screaming got even louder. Igor turned into another corridor, the door shutting behind him. Booth slammed into the wall as the quickest way to stop his momentum and change direction. Brennan hit the wall after him and they went up a ramp and through the doors.

Everything was dark and they seemed to be in a dead end. 'Where'd he go?' Brennan asked as they came to a stop.

Booth looked around in confusion. 'Where are we?'

Brennan was stooped over catching her breath. Without warning the doors they had run through slammed closed again. Booth thought he heard a lock click into place. Then the entire room vibrated, as if it were…

'Booth,' Brennan said, panting for breath. 'Is this part of the building? Where—' She didn't finish her question, because it was suddenly very plain where they were.

The room jolted suddenly and the truck took off. They had literally run straight into Igor's trap.


	63. Chapter 63

CH 63

'Booth!'

The truck rattled and turned, toppling Brennan over and slamming Booth against the wall. 'Booth we have to get out of here…'

Booth walked unsteadily to the back doors and tried to force them apart. 'It's locked on the outside, maybe a lever…'

The truck went over a speed bump much too fast. Brennan was actually thrown into the air for a second before slamming down on the dusty metal.

'Uh!' Booth grunted, managing to hold onto the door hinge. 'Look around, can you see anything we can use?'

'There's nothing else in here,' Brennan said.

'What's that?'

She looked where he was pointing. Everything was so dark. 'It looks like a fire extinguisher of some sort…'

The truck careened around a hairpin-bend and both of them slid across the floor. 'I can reach it,' Bones said, stretching out her hand for the canister.

'Wait, Bones, don't touch it—' Booth said. It was too late. She'd already triggered it. Billows of grey vapour filled the space. Brennan tried to stopper it again, but Booth dragged her over to sit in the corner with him, as far away from the fumes as they could get, not that it made any difference. They both started coughing. Booth thought he recognised the smell but suddenly felt too sleepy to remember what it was called. Bones made a soft 'oh' sound and crumpled against Booth, her eyelids becoming heavy.

'Don't… don't…' Booth started to say. Then everything went black.

.

When Booth woke up it was cold and dank. It smelled musty. And he couldn't feel Bones.

'Bones? Bones. Bones...' It was almost totally dark, wherever he was, and he groped around blindly trying to find the wall and the door and Bones.

'Uh.' He'd hit something warm. 'Bones? Bones, you awake?' He could feel warmth under his hands, he had no idea what part of her body he was touching but he knew it was her because she smelled familiar, like his laundry detergent and caramel tarts.

'Booth?'

She groggily sat up and Booth was relieved his hand was on her back. _There are a lot of ways that could have gone wrong_. 'Do you know where we are?'

'No… do you?'

'I… I might. I'm not sure.' She placed her palm on the floor and then against the wall. Both were wet and cold, and as far as she could tell, were made of compressed earth rather than concrete.

'Oh.' Booth could feel his clothes soaking up the dampness on the ground. It was freezing, and they were even colder because they'd been knocked out and asleep. He shuffled towards Bones and pulled her back against him. She let out a few long breaths, trying to stay calm. A big part of her wanted to panic. This felt terribly familiar, even though she couldn't put her finger on why. The difference this time… _Booth's here_.

Brennan's shirt was wet too, Booth noticed. He pulled her around in front of him with her back flush against him. The warmth was relieving but it also made him start to shiver since now the rest of him felt colder by comparison. Brennan was shaking as well. Booth closed his eyes and lay back against the wall. They needed to get out of here.

'Okay, just sit here for a few minutes,' he said tiredly. Just long enough for the bone-chilling cold to alleviate.

It felt like hours must have passed. He needed to pee, Bones probably did too. Where were they? It might have been underground, but there are millions of cellars and basements, spaces under people's houses…

Booth grunted and slid her off of him, then pulled himself onto his feet, staggering from the after-effects of the gas.

'What are you doing?' Brennan asked softly.

'Gonna get us outta here…'

'Oh. Our eyes have… adjusted to the lack of light, I think I can see something over there.'

Booth had no idea where she was indicating but he heard her get up and stumble across the room. 'Careful, don't slip,' he said.

'It's fine, Booth… _uh_. Here, the door's here.'

Booth nearly walked into her. He could feel the door, it was wooden and splintery, and swollen from the damp. He found the hinges and the handle and shook as hard as he could. His foot slipped in a puddle and he fell onto his knees, one hand splashing into the water.

'Booth, careful! Are you alright?'

'Yeah. I think I can see light under the door.'

'The hinges, do you have anything to lever or hit it with?'

Booth felt his pockets. 'No—my wallet, my phone… keys are gone, it's all gone.'

Bones crouched down and looked under the door. 'Take off your shoe.'

'What?'

'I'm going to use the sole as a hammer and a lever on the hinge.'

'Isn't someone likely to hear that?' he asked, unlacing his left shoe.

'Yes,' she said simply. Booth handed her the shoe.

'Be careful, Bones, don't make too much noise. Can you see what you're doing?'

'Not really.' _Bang_.

'Bones!' he hissed as she slammed the shoe against the metal. 'Hold the hinge with one hand, muffle the sound a bit…'

'Do you want to do it?'

'Fine, give it to me…'

Booth ran his hands all over the hinge, the wall and the door to get an idea of what he was breaking. He slammed the shoe down a few times and held his sock around the rusty metal to absorb the shock and clang.

'Is it working?' Bones whispered. The more noise they made, the more likely someone would come.

'Yeah. This room is ancient, the wood is half rotten.'

'I remember this place.'

Booth brought the shoe down again and a piece of the hinge peeled back. 'Really?'

'Very vaguely. I didn't have anything to break the hinges with.'

Booth slipped his hand into the sock so he wouldn't cut his fingers and tore one part of the hinge off. Then he knelt down and carefully chipped away until the second one broke.

Brennan stayed crouched on the floor, looking under the door for any sign that someone had heard them. What would they do once they got out? Someone had dragged, or more likely carried them down here. There would be more than one person nearby.

'Got it,' Booth said. He pulled another scrap of metal away and then he grabbed the side of the door and pushed. The wood creaked and groaned, and they held their breath as it opened wide enough to get through. The corridor outside was barely lit but they could make out a staircase, and the pindrop-sound of dripping water.

'I'll go first,' whispered Booth, straining against the door as he slipped outside. 'Come on—' He held the door open for Brennan, and once she was out he crouched down and put his shoe back on.

Bones was already moving down the hallway. 'Bones,' Booth whispered as he made his way after.

'It's this way,' she said softly, leading not up the stairs but to the far end of the corridor. Booth couldn't see anything but Brennan reached up to the low ceiling and somehow found a manhole, completely invisible unless you knew how to find it.

Booth helped her push open the trapdoor, which was almost too heavy to lift from underneath. He gave her a leg up. Once she was safely on the next floor he stood with his hands on the rim, then jumped and pulled himself up. They were both being deathly quiet now. The room they were in was a tiny shack, and it was raining. It was obviously night time. Brennan crawled across the dirt and found the door, got up on her knees and opened it.

'Nice,' Booth whispered. Not caring about getting wet, they crept out into an empty lot with tangles of weeds. There was a larger building behind with light in the window. There was a street, and more buildings.

'Come on.' Booth took her hand they started running, not knowing which direction to take but just anywhere to get away.

They slipped and staggered a few times. The grass sunk into mud puddles which splashed all over them, and with water in their faces it was hard to really see. They were following a road—there weren't any lights around. If this was in D.C., it would have to be an outlying suburb. Trees loomed out of the dark, illuminated briefly when the clouds moved away from the moon.

Adrenaline was helping them run, and running was helping them warm up. After ten minutes, Booth slowed down and led them onto the shoulder of the road.

'Just wait here a second, Bones, I just have to pee…'

'Oh. Me too…'

'I'll go over here,' Booth said pointing. 'Don't go too far,' he added seriously. 'Six feet away, I am not going to risk losing you out here.'

A few minutes later Brennan came back to the road where Booth was waiting. 'Once you stop running, it's cold,' she said shakily.

'We need to find some shelter, preferably with a hot shower,' Booth suggested.

'Do you have any idea where we are?'

'Other than the middle of nowhere, not much.'

Two lights appeared in the distance and they shrunk back to stay out of sight as the car passed. 'They probably will have noticed we're gone by now,' Bones said, taking Booth's arm.

'You know, you did great back in that room. You remembered something, you found out how to get in and out. They didn't think you would remember.'

Brennan looked at him, his eyes the most visible part of his face in the rain and the dark. 'Yeah.'

'They thought that what they did to you, you wouldn't notice that. They would have guarded us more closely. They underestimated you.'

She leaned into him a fraction. 'Well I couldn't have escaped on my own, I wouldn't have even got to go home if you hadn't found me. They underestimated you.'

'They underestimated the both of us. As a team,' Booth compromised. He saw another light approaching, this time from the opposite direction. He stepped out onto the road, Brennan still holding his arm and hailed the driver to stop.

The car slowed down and pulled up alongside them. 'What are you doing out here? You break down?' the man driving asked, winding the window down.

'Yeah, we just need a lift to a payphone. Anywhere you can drop us would be appreciated,' Booth said. Brennan wanted to ask Booth why he didn't just explain what had happened, but when she started to speak he squeezed her hand and shook his head.

'Alright, just climb in the back y'all,' the man said, unlocking the back door. 'You ain't gonna shoot me or nothing?'

'Hah, no, we're very grateful,' Booth replied, letting Bones climb in first and shutting the door behind them. The car started moving again, and they registered warm air from the heater up the front. It didn't do much but it was sort of comforting.

'Let me do the talking, okay?' Booth whispered in her ear. She nodded and started trying to wring the water out of her clothes, which was nearly impossible. They drove past the building they were held in, but couldn't see anyone around. Even though it just pressed the wet fabric harder against her cold skin Bones brought her knees up and leaned against Booth. She just wanted dry clothes and a hot shower.

They were really out in the sticks. There were a few streetlights, just there to light up side-roads that would otherwise be impossible to find in the dark. Trees crowded the road on both sides. After a few miles Booth saw a police station. 'If you could just drop us off there, that would be great,' he told the driver.

'Sure,' he said, pulling onto the shoulder of the road. 'Y'all have a good night now.'

'Thank-you,' Brennan said as they climbed out.

'Yeah, thanks.'

The driver gave a single wave and moved off down the road.

Booth and Brennan stumbled into the station, their feet slippery and muddy, and making a mess on the white tiles. An officer came over to them and told them to take a seat.

'I'm Special Agent Seeley Booth, from the FBI and Dr Temperance Brennan,' Booth said, the cop writing that down. 'We lost all our gear—wallets, ID, cell phones, keys… If you could let me use the phone…'

'Sure,' the officer said. Looking at Brennan, whose shivering was more pronounced, he added, 'We don't normally do this but we do have a staff shower and change room out the back. I can find you something to wear out of the lost property closet.'

'That would be great,' Booth answered for her. The cop took Booth over to the phone and a female officer showed Brennan the showers.

It was clean and bright inside, and Brennan's eyes were still adjusting. She stripped off the dirty clothes and stood for about fifteen minutes under the hot spray, until she felt warm enough to get out. The other woman had left her a button-up top, an adjustable skirt and a coat, so she rinsed out her old clothes, put on her own underwear and the borrowed clothes over the top. Her shoes were ruined so she tossed them into a bag with her wet outfit and wandered out to find Booth.

'He's in the other shower, honey,' said the same woman. Brennan nodded and took a seat and waited. Booth was out almost immediately, wearing a grey t-shirt and jeans that were slightly too big. He sat beside Brennan in the row of plastic chairs. 'You feel better after a shower?'

She nodded. 'Yeah, I feel really sleepy now though. Can we go home from here?'

'A taxi will be here in ten minutes, the cops are shouting us a ride.'

'You don't have any money?'

'Or keys. We'll have to try our luck as lock picks.'

'Shouldn't be too hard.'

'Not after breaking that door open,' Booth said. He was still jittery that they weren't safely home yet. It was highly unlikely that Igor and McCullough would abduct them from a police station, but at the same time, Booth hadn't told the cops the whole story. Photos and names of the men involved in the Broadsky case had been sent around to all law enforcement agents in the state, but dealing with these guys was a bit beyond the resources and training of cops. It was best not to have them directly involved. It would likely just mean more people getting hurt.

'Your taxi's outside,' the woman behind the counter called out. Booth went up and got a card from her which would reimburse the driver, then grabbed their wet clothes and went outside with Bones.

They'd been in orange cabs like this one hundreds of times, but after tonight they were wary of everything and any stranger seemed that bit more frightening. Brennan slipped in behind Booth and he gave the cabbie his address.

'I think I want another shower,' Booth complained quietly to Bones. She smiled and put her head on his shoulder.

It was after eleven when they got out at Booth's building and made their way up. Brennan gave Booth a bobby pin and after five minutes he managed to open the door. They were both tired and fazed, and just wanted to crawl into bed behind numerous doors and deadlocks.

Brennan was about to have another shower when Booth's old rotary phone rang.

'Booth,' he said, picking up the receiver and making eye contact with Bones.

'Agent Booth, I've been trying to contact you all night!'

'_Shaw_,' Booth mouthed to Brennan. 'Why, what's going on?'

'We sent two agents to find Broadsky's weapons developer in L.A.'

'Hey, that's good!'

'They're dead.'

'They're wh—what happened?'

'There was a shootout. Broadsky was there, Jeff was on the phone to me when it happened…'

'Jeff's dead?'

Genny took a sharp breath, like she was trying not to get emotional. '…yes.'

'Oh.' Booth just stood there and no one said anything, both of them letting this news sink in. 'When?'

'At six tonight,' Shaw said.

'That's what, over five hours ago. Did someone… how did… was it Broadsky or…'

'He was there, he shot to kill… he picked up Jeff's phone and talked to me… He said that, you'd broken your arrangement with him, about not looking for him.'

'Oh. That. Well yeah.'

'You need to come in right away to be put in a safe house.'

'What? Why, do you think Broadsky might do something?' Booth took a step towards the window and peeked through the blinds into the dark

'Sir, he said he's coming after you, because you didn't stop looking. I'm so sorry, but Broadsky, he'll shoot to kill, we don't have a choice...'

'I'm not going to hide from him,' Booth rattled, glancing around the apartment as if appreciating it for the first time. He'd rather be in jail than a safehouse.

'He said you are a liability, both of you… you and Dr Brennan. I mean he killed two agents, just like that, just for trying to find him. He's not messing around. If he said he'll come for you, then he's coming. He could be here in D.C. by now.'

Booth took a deep breath and looked at Bones, who was standing fixed to the spot, clutching a towel and watching him nervously. 'He threatened both of us,' he repeated. What choice did he have? 'I can't let anything happen to… We'll come over.'

'Good. I'm so sorry, sir. I can come and pick you up, take you straight there.'

'Oh, right. Uh, thanks. I'll see you soon.' Booth hung up the receiver. It clanged heavily. It felt like a judge's gavel, condemning him to a confined space, for an indeterminate time…

'Broadsky shot two agents, he's coming for us next. Shaw wants us in a safehouse,' he said, silence ringing in his ears.

'Oh.'

'Bones, forget about the shower, go grab some clothes and stuff. We're leaving in fifteen.'

'A safe house,' she repeated. Booth walked past her into the bedroom to pack. She stood rooted to the spot. _A safe house_. Something was wrong… She couldn't be in a safehouse. Not after being incarcerated for weeks. Freedom, to get out of there had been all she'd wanted—she'd rather be free and fending for herself alone than tied and locked up. She dropped the towel on the floor and slowly kneeled down. She was feeling sick. She could almost feel the rough cords burning against her wrists and tight metal cuffs digging into her legs.

'_He's gone too far,' someone was saying. 'Theiss was mine. I've been waiting years for that shot, and he's gone and cost me everything!'_

'_You want to put out a hit on him?'_

'_Not put one out, take one on. Theiss, he's gone, but I still have a score to settle. I want to be the one pulling that trigger. Keenan's got to pay for what he did.'_

'_He's been radio silent for decades, you're never going to smoke him out.'_

'_I can wait. In my books, the old vendetta is transferred to him now. Revenge should never be hurried.'_

_Her head was throbbing painfully, as if she was becoming conscious after a blow to the head. She looked up at the three men and one of them walked towards her with a sack. The world went black._

'Bones. _Bones_.'

Booth was kneeling over her. She'd somehow collapsed into a heap on the floor and was beginning to hyperventilate. 'You're safe at home, I'm right here,' he was telling her. 'Bones. I know this is hard but we need to get out of here, Genny Shaw's coming to get us. I need to take you someplace safe.'

Brennan sat up and flinched rather violently. 'No.'

'Bones, I don't like it either—'

'_No_!'

She said this so brokenly Booth made himself stop and listen.

'I… I need to go find him.'

'What? Find who?'

'They're looking for him too. He's going to be shot. I have to find him.' Brennan was getting to her feet, as if she was going to charge off on some mission right now.

'Whoa, whoa,' Booth said, scrambling to his feet and putting a hand on each of her upper arms to get her attention. 'Is this… You said earlier you remembered hearing about a hit.'

'Yes. An assassination. They're going to kill him, I don't know why.' Her eyes were pleading.

'Broadsky's planning a hit.'

'_Yes._'

'Do you, do you know who?'

Brennan looked miserably at him. 'It's my dad. They're going after Max.'


	64. Chapter 64

Brennan and Booth stood in a face-off in the middle of Booth's living room.

'Bones, look, I'm sorry about this too but we know, _specifically_ that Broadsky is looking to kill us. It's a real threat and he's a perfect shot. He doesn't miss. We have to go to the safe house.'

'I'm not going,' Brennan deadpanned.

'I'm not leaving you behind, Bones. Look, I just… I need you to be safe, okay? Nothing else matters.'

'He's my _dad_, Booth. I know he and I haven't always… I'm not going to a safe house. I have to find him. He's my dad.'

'There are other agents, Bones. The FBI will find Max, he'll be okay.'

Brennan looked away and sniffed and felt her eyes burn in frustration. 'Once we're in the safehouse, who knows how long we could be in there? It won't… be safe, to come out, until Broadsky's dead or incarcerated. We won't have my dad, we won't have our freedom and we won't have answers.'

'I can't lose you,' Booth said, and both of them seemed to freeze up, choked on all the things they were feeling.

It might have been two minutes, but finally Bones looked up at Booth, her face saying more than her words could, and took a step forward. He grabbed her and pulled her in close. 'I'm not going to the safe house,' she said again.

_Dammit_. Agent Shaw was going to be here any minute. Booth looked around the room over Brennan's head. They didn't have keys, money, phones, a safe car, ID… He just had his gun. He was going to have to make this decision. He closed his eyes. He could force Bones to come with him. She might not speak to him for a while but she'd be safe. _She's not going to be safe until Broadsky and McCullough are dead_, he thought. There wasn't anyone in the FBI who could rival Booth's skills with a gun. He didn't know who else would be able to take Broadsky down.

He blew out a long breath. He couldn't take Bones and lock her away. And Parker… He'd promised Parker he'd catch the bad guys, and they could all go home. He couldn't let his son grow up in captivity.

'We're going to need cash,' Booth said into Brennan's hair. 'A different car, maybe disguises… Camping gear, sleeping bags, food.'

'I've got money,' she said into his chest. 'You have the rest.'

'Okay,' said Booth, drawing in a last deep breath full of her scent. If they were going to disappear, they'd only have each other to count on. They were going to have to make this work. He moved back and looked around the room again, a list of items to pack forming in his mind. 'Have you still got your second phone?'

'In my duffel bag. You lost both of yours?'

'Yeah. Okay, your stuff is mostly in the closet, how about you go pack. I'll get camping gear…'

They each hurried off to pack as much as they could. They were bound to forget something with only fifteen minutes to get ready. Brennan grabbed an armful of clothes and wrangled the coathangers out, folding the whole pile in half and stuffing it into her bag. She found her spare phone, ran into the bathroom to grab her makeup and some toiletries for both of them. She managed to cram everything in and get the zipper closed. 'Do you want me to pack for you?' she called, not sure where Booth was right now.

'Yeah, thanks,' came his voice from the kitchen. 'Pack warm, make sure you throw in sweaters and socks.'

'I've got it,' she called back.

Booth had a big suitcase out and was emptying in a can opener, two forks, knives and spoons, plates, cups and a decent amount of food from the pantry. He hauled out the first aid kit and packed that too. He went into Parker's room to get out the sleeping bags and tent, nearly running into Brennan on the way as she headed into the kitchen. 'I've got the first aid kit,' he called over his shoulder.

'Oh, good. What about blankets?'

'Yeah, we still need those,' he said as he pulled down the camping gear out of the cupboard. A few minutes later they were both dragging stuff to the living room. They piled it up near the door, and Booth slid his gun into its holster. They were ready.

'Where are we going to go?' Brennan asked quietly.

'Well let's just get out of here first, we'll figure it out.'

'Thank you, Booth,' she said, looking at her feet. 'I know you didn't have to… Thanks, for believing me.'

Booth didn't reply, partly because there was a new concern building itself in the back of his mind that Brennan might not actually know what she thought she knew. But it wasn't the right time to think about that. 'Can you go write down your credit card numbers, any accounts you'll need to freeze from what was in your wallet?'

'Oh, right.'

'Grab me some paper too. Actually bring it with us, pen and paper are always good to have around…'

There was a knock at the door. Booth checked through the peephole—it was Genny. He clicked open the deadlock. 'Hi, Shaw. Come on in.'

'Thanks.' She stepped in over a sleeping bag. 'Uh… They do have beds you know,' she said, trying to be lighthearted and detached about this situation, and rather failing at it.

'Bones, you done?' Booth called.

'Yes,' she said, coming into the hall.

'Hi Dr Brennan.'

'Hello.'

Now the three of them were there, Booth had to say something. 'Shaw, we're… We're not going into the safehouse.'

'But Sir, Broadsky, he could be anywhere. You're the ones he's targeting—'

'Yeah, I know,' Booth assured her. Shaw was beginning to look distressed.

'They're gone, you know? Trent, he's been on my team for months. And Jeff… we were going to have coffee…'

'Look, Genevieve, I know this is hard. It's hard every time. And I'm sorry about Jeff, he was a great guy.'

Brennan shifted uncomfortably as Genny wiped at her eyes. She wasn't good at this. And she was anxious to get going.

'What are you going to do?' Shaw asked after a moment.

'Well first, you're going to drive to the safehouse as planned. We just won't be in the car. As far as everyone knows, we're in protective custody.'

'Okay. Where are you going to go?'

'Broadsky is after Max Keenan,' Booth said, catching Bones' eye. She nonverbally said '_thankyou'_ and instinctively stepped a little closer to him. 'We're going to find Max, first of all. We don't have things worked out yet but we will.'

'What about Broadsky?'

'We are going to stay hidden,' Brennan said, glancing at Booth, 'right?' He nodded. 'Booth is an excellent shot, and we'll change cars and we'll dress differently…'

'We'll be alright, Shaw. I wouldn't put Bones in danger, we'll be careful and we'll stay under the radar.'

Genny nodded. 'Okay. So, what can I do?'

'Well first you can help us get these bags downstairs,' Booth said, throwing the tent over his shoulder and picking up the suitcase.

'Sure. Are you going to get a different car, do you want me to take you to the Hoover?'

'Yeah,' Booth decided. 'That'd be great. Good time to go, midnight, won't be anyone around…'

'Agent Shaw, these are our credit card details,' said Brennan, handing her the paper. 'Would you be able to call the banks and freeze them?'

'Of course.' Genny slipped it in her pocket and grabbed the two sleeping bags and a bag full of stuff from the bathroom. Bones had her and Booth's clothes, and locking the door behind them they made their way down to the street.

'You know, it would have been so much easier before if you'd just let me keep a spare key on top of the doorframe,' Booth ribbed Brennan, tossing and catching the spare keys in his hand.

'Well if I could find them, then plenty of other people could too, and I wasn't even trying to break in…'

Genny watched the partners and tried not to smile. They were complaining about each other, but Booth was putting his hand on the back of her neck and rubbing her muscles and Brennan was angling towards him. It was going to seem really quiet at the Hoover without these two.

'C'mon, everybody out,' Booth said as the elevator doors opened. They shuffled out to Shaw's car and piled everything in.

'So back to the Hoover, and I'll sign you out another car,' Shaw said as she turned onto the street.

Brennan yawned in the back where she was holding onto the bags. Booth reached behind and took the phone from her hand. 'You sure this is your new one?'

'Yes. It has all the relevant numbers put in—your office, Angela, Agent Shaw, Hodgins. Even Sweets.'

'Not my cell?'

'Of course not. They probably have a trace on that.'

'They probably have a trace on all the other numbers.'

'Which is why I didn't give this number out to anyone.'

'Hah, there's my little squint. You'd make a pretty decent agent Bones, 'v'I ever told you that?'

'You wouldn't make a very good squint though, so I think we should just stick to what we're good at.'

'Oh I don't know. I know my way around a Bunsen burner. And I'm really good at those mentos and coke volcanoes, they were _fun_.'

Brennan laid her head against the window and closed her eyes. It had been a really long night, and it was about to get longer.

**A/N**

**Heh, I know the Brennan-on-the-run thing sort of already happened, but I totally wrote the outline for this chapter 2 weeks before it aired so I didn't know! Haha. Also, I sort of want to incorporate Pellant somehow cos he's such a fantastic bad guy, but it wouldn't really fit with the story.**


	65. Chapter 65

'Bones.' Brennan opened her eyes to see Booth leaning around from the passenger seat. 'Time to get out, come on, I can't leave you in here. You have to come inside.'

She sleepily undid her seatbelt and opened the door. Agent Shaw was disappearing inside to arrange a new vehicle. Booth took her hands and pulled her out. 'Come on sleepy head. You are _not_ getting to drive tonight.'

'Okay,' Brennan said, just wanting to get in the new car and let Booth take them wherever he wanted to go.

They pulled the bags out of the back seat and piled them up behind the car. Bones leaned against the boot and not long after Genny came back with some keys. 'You've got a white hatchback, 2000 model, that one over there. About as plain as they come.'

'Great,' Booth said taking the keys. He grabbed the heaviest of the bags and lugged them into the boot. Bones didn't realise they were going until Booth was halfway back for the second load. She grabbed the clothes bags and helped pack. In about five minutes it was done.

'So I guess this is goodbye,' Shaw said, looking at them with a mixture of regret and compassion.

'For now. We'll be fine, if we need help we'll contact you,' Booth promised. Shaw held out her hand for him to shake but Booth gave her a quick hug. 'Thanks for everything, Genny. Don't worry about us, okay? We'll be fine.'

Genny nodded and looked between the partners. 'Good luck. I'll make sure everyone here thinks you're in a safehouse. And I'll cancel those cards.'

Booth wrapped an arm around Brennan, who seemed to be on her last burst of energy, and helped her into the passenger seat. He got in on driver's side and pulled slowly out of the garage. He gave Shaw a last wave as they headed out into D.C.

.

Where are we going to go?' Brennan asked quietly.

'You're letting me decide? I'd have thought you would have it all planned out by now,' Booth said with a grin.

'The only place I want to go right now is bed, wherever that may be.'

'Well there's nothing here but you, me and the open road.'

'And sleeping bags.'

'_And_ sleeping bags.'

'I'll have to stop off at a bank in the morning, withdraw some money,' she said with another yawn.

'Go to sleep, Bones. I'll wake you up when I've found a good place to stop.'

.

Booth had been driving for over an hour. Exhaustion was starting to kick in, but he felt they were far enough out of the city to risk being found tonight. He pulled into a half-overgrown campsite and parked the car in the furthest corner, a spot which actually had a good vantage point to see the rest of the grounds. Brennan didn't stir when he turned the engine off so he grabbed the tent- luckily it was one of the cool pop-up ones that didn't take twenty minutes to assemble. He pulled out the sleeping bags and put them inside. Then he went to wake Brennan.

'Bones. We're here, come and get into an actual bed, you're going to be really uncomfortable if you stay here all night. Come on.'

Brennan nodded with the burst of sudden wakefulness and crawled into the tent. 'You want pyjamas?' Booth asked, hoping she'd say no.

'It'll take too long, I just want to sleep,' she said. She stripped off the skirt from the police station, pulled off her bra without taking off her shirt and crawled into the tent.

'Did we pack a torch?' Booth asked, climbing into bed in his boxers.

'I don't remember. Probably not.'

'We can get one tomorrow. Goodnight.'

''Night.'

.

It was late morning , almost eleven when Booth woke up. The tent was still cool since there were trees all around blocking the sunlight. Brennan was still sleeping lightly but she seemed to register Booth waking up and after a minute, blinked and looked across at him.

'Morning,' Booth smiled.

'Hello.'

'Wow, I really want my toothbrush…'

'Oh. It's in my duffel bag. Can you get mine?'

'Sure.' Booth unzipped the tent and crawled out. The tent said 'two-man' but Booth was pretty sure that was a mistake. _Technically_ it fit him and Brennan, or him and Parker, but there was hardly space to roll over.

It was beautiful and sunny outside. Booth didn't know exactly where they were but it looked a lot like a nature reserve. Birds were chirping away, and they weren't pigeons, so in Booth's book that meant actual genuine nature. 'Bones, come on, get up you're missing all the sunshine.' He unlocked the car and pulled his jeans back on. It was way too cramped in the tent to get changed.

The windows still had condensation on them. It was weird to drive such a small car after the SUVs, but they would be far too easy to track in their regular car. As far as he knew, it was still parked outside his apartment. He kind of hoped it would still be there when they got back.

Brennan crawled out, squinting a bit, and stumbled over to the car.

'Morning,' Booth said cheerfully.

'Uh,' Bones grunted and started rummaging for clothes.

'I've got your toothbrush,' he said, holding it out as she found her jeans and a top.

'Thanks,' she said, still looking half asleep. 'Do you think there are showers around here?'

'Uh, no. Actually I'm not even sure if we're allowed to camp here.'

Brennan rummaged in her bag for her water bottle and a wash cloth, and used them to clean her face. Booth started looking for breakfast in his big suitcase.

Brennan wandered off into the trees to find somewhere to get changed, Booth keeping half an eye out to make sure she came back within five minutes. He found some oatmeal and long-life milk and got out plates, spoons and even some orange juice. He thought he'd done a pretty decent job of packing, considering the amount of time he'd had. He scoffed it down and left some out for Brennan, then went to pack up the tent.

'Booth?' she called a few minutes later.

'Over here.'

'Oh.' She wandered over to where he was wrestling a sleeping bag back into its case. 'I'm sorry, I just, I couldn't see you…'

'I think we're allowed to be a bit paranoid on this camping trip, Bones,' he said with half a smile.

'It's not really a camping trip.'

'Well it sounds better than, like, being in 'exile', or 'on the run'. Have you done much camping?'

'In Africa and South America, I had a few digs that required us to camp,' she said, sitting on the edge of the car seat to eat her breakfast. 'And I've done a bit as a graduate student.'

'How did you manage that?— No money, no parents…'

'Scholarships,' she said into her cereal bowl. 'I donate to them now. Wendell is one of the students who now benefits.'

She said this so unpretentiously that Booth was proud of her. He wanted to ask more questions about her past but didn't feel it was the right time. Besides, they needed to work out a plan.

'We need to find dad,' Brennan said after finishing her oatmeal. Booth nodded. 'And then, we need to find Broadsky so you can arrest him or shoot him.'

'That's about it.'

'Do you have any idea where to start?'

'Well first up, we need to get in touch with Max.'

'I remember his cell numbers and a couple of old landlines.'

Booth was impressed. 'Wow, I still have to write down Pops' number at the nursing home.'

'Eidetic memory,' Brennan shrugged.

'Good thing I brought you along.'

'Actually, I was the one who wanted to do this...'

'I know Bones, just a figure of speech. So we can start by calling him.'

Brennan pulled out her phone. 'Oh,' she said, looking at the blank display. 'I forgot to pack my phone charger.'

'We should make a list of stuff we need to buy.'

'Yeah okay. Anything else you can think of?'

'Not right now. So, first port of call is finding a bank, and then electronics.'

'Oh- and a torch, and batteries.'

There was nowhere to wash up their breakfast dishes, so Brennan piled them into a plastic bag while Booth brushed his teeth. Brennan did hers next and Booth packed the tent and sleeping bags into the hatchback. Finally they were both ready to go. Booth slid into the driver's seat and zoomed out on the GPS. 'There's a town about five miles from here. Should take us about twenty minutes, then we can find a restroom, get to a bank and buy a new phone charger.'

Bones nodded. 'Okay.' Booth turned the ignition and pulled onto the main road.

He looked at Bones out of the corner of his eye. She seemed really quiet today. _Not that that's unusual for the last seven weeks_, he thought. He didn't think he would ever forget those first few days of Bones not saying a word, and barely seeming to recognise him. But lately she did seem to be improving.

She was thinking. He could tell—she had a slight crease in her brow and was staring out the windshield but not really focusing. A large truck passed them going the other way. _Oh…_ _I should probably be watching to road_.

He wanted to reach over and take her hand with his but didn't do it. He wasn't sure why. He had the feeling there was distance between them thismorning, and he couldn't quantify or explain it. He gripped the steering wheel a bit tighter to so his hand wouldn't drift across to hers automatically.

'There's a gas station over there,' she said ten minutes later as they drove into the town centre. 'We could stop and fill up the car.'

'No money.'

'Oh. Right.' She gave a puff of laughter through her nose.

'See, it's all about the adventure, Bones. This is what makes it interesting. I mean, you and me, in the game of life we could be doing anything we wanted, right, but here we are, staying low, and it's a challenge.'

'You mean stealing petrol?'

Booth laughed. 'Which bank are you with?'

'Oh—there's a branch over there. On the right.'

Booth dropped her off at the entrance and went to find a park. He wasn't sure how she was going to withdraw cash without any ID, but she'd already gone inside before he could ask.

Ten minutes later Bones came and got back into the car. 'How did you go?'

'I only withdrew a thousand, because I didn't have any documents. I had six passwords though, so he finally agreed to give it to me. I don't know why he was so hesitant. Identification is far easier to forge, than it is to guess one of a near infinite number of possible passwords.'

'I'm impressed. I just rely on my badge all the time.'

'Well it's potentially easy to lose a badge. Keeping knowledge in your mind, your mind's harder to lose…'

Brennan trailed off and Booth didn't reply.

'Hey, there's an electronics store,' he said as soon as he spotted one. 'And there's a tap in the garden. You go get your charger, and I'll wash up the plates.'

'Okay.'

Booth pulled over near the garden, which would look _slightly_ less weird when he took dishes out than if he walked across the whole carpark with them. By the time he was done Brennan was coming out, toting a bag.

Their next stop was a park with a big restroom. Brennan found a power point on the outside of the building, then sat on the ground next to Booth for an hour while they waited for the phone to charge.

Booth found himself wishing he had that book of world records, or even an anthropology journal to read with her. He could feel palpable tension between them, and he was at a loss for what to do about it. Was she feeling defensive? Was something wrong? He couldn't bring himself to ask, and she'd probably deny anything was wrong. Whatever was simmering away in her, it was bound to all come out sooner or later. Until they managed to track Broadsky down and end all this, they were stuck with each other. Booth just hoped they'd be able to stick it out.

.

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**A/N Hey gentle readers! Hope you're enjoying :o) I know this was kind of a strange twist but there are just so many possibilities, got it planned out, couldn't resist. Plus my muse insisted. Stay tuned in for more action :o) If you haven't left a review yet, let me know what you think! *mwah***


	66. Chapter 66

'Hello?'

'Russ. Hi, it's Tempe.'

'Wow, hey Tempe. Nice of you to call. But I kind of have the feeling this is more than just a catch-up to say hi.'

'Yeah, well sort of. It's about dad.'

'Oh great. What did he do this time?'

'N-nothing, he's just, I just need to get in contact with him.'

'Are you in some kind of trouble?' Russ asked after a moment. 'Is_ he_ in some kind of trouble?'

'Yes, I think he's in danger, there's a sniper who wants to kill him.'

'Tempe, there are probably a lot of snipers who want to kill him. He knows how to handle himself, and I haven't seen him for a few months anyway.'

'Did he change his phone number or address recently?'

'Like I said, I haven't seen him. You know sometimes the best way to get in touch with dad is to just, you know, send out some feelers.'

'Feelers?'

'Yeah, you know, feelers— ask around. Some of his buddies, or enemies even. Word will get around. He'll probably contact you.'

'That's the problem though. Booth and I, we're a bit out of contact at the moment.'

'You and Booth, hey? So you're not in D.C..'

'No.'

'You're together somewhere? I always did like him.'

'That's not the point, we're sort of… radio quiet.'

'It's radio silent, and can I ask why?'

'Because of the sniper.'

'The sniper who wants to kill dad.'

'Yes. He—I was abducted a while ago, and now he's after dad.'

'Whoa, wait, what are you talking about? You were abducted? Why didn't I hear about this, are you okay?'

'I'm fine Russ, I've been with Booth. I just… I need to find dad. I need to talk to him.'

'Look, Tempe, I'm sorry about all of this. Whatever you went through, I don't know, but this stuff with dad, you're not his keeper. He's made a lot of choices and he has to deal with the consequences. You shouldn't be responsible for him. I'm just saying, I don't want to see you caught up in his mess.'

'I think I'm already caught up in his mess. Look, just, save this as my number on your phone and if you think of anything more, give me a call. Don't contact my old number, I don't have it anymore.'

'Yeah okay. Look, Amy's calling me, I'm gonna have to go. You say hi to Booth for me, tell him I'm looking at him.'

'But you're not.'

'It means I'm your big brother. You know what, never mind. You call if you need anything, okay?'

'Sure.'

'I'll do some looking around to find dad. I've gotta go, we're taking Hayley and Emma to a theme park today. You're sure you're okay?'

'Yeah, I'm fine.'

'Alright. I'll see you Tempe.'

'Bye Russ.'

Bones put the phone down. They were at a picnic table in the park, and her phone was finally ready to go. She was going to charge it in the car from now on.

'Anything helpful?' asked Booth.

'Russ is looking at you and he thinks we need feelers.'

'… Okay, I don't know what that means, but it sounds like he doesn't know where to find Max.'

'He wasn't very helpful. I thought Russ was close to dad.'

'Well they've been in contact over the years, that's not the same as being close. And Max, he's the kind of guy who doesn't put all his eggs in one basket.'

'I don't know what that—'

'It means Max doesn't trust any one person with all his secrets, he spreads them out. He's careful. He loves you and your brother, I really think he does but he's never going to tell you everything. The only one who knows his business is him.'

'So you think, there's no way Russ could have known enough to help us.'

'I'm just not surprised that he doesn't. So… So far, none of the numbers you had for Max have answered… at least we know where he isn't. Maybe we should just try again later, maybe his phone was off, you know how older people can be with phones.'

'I guess.'

'Hey, can I use it for a minute, I want to call Shaw.'

'Oh, okay, here.'

Booth punched in the number and leaned across the picnic table trying to block out the distracting sounds of kids running around and playing.

'Genevieve Shaw.'

'Shaw, it's Booth.'

'Oh! Hello sir, how are you and Dr Brennan doing?'

'We're fine. Look, I know it's a bit risky calling but I need you to do a search on Max Keenan. We haven't found a lead yet, so anything you can dig up…'

'Of course. I'll get onto that first up.'

'Great. Thanks. How's the safehouse thing?'

'Oh, the guys monitoring the house were disappointed, they seemed to think it would be a lot of fun to have you in the house.'

Booth rolled his eyes. 'Yeah, I'm sure they'd keep things interesting, knowing those agents.' There was a quiet history of practical jokes with the agents in question way back in Quantico. Booth also suspected there were a few betting pools going about his and Bones' relationship status. He was actually kind of pleased not to be a labrat.

'Call if you need anything, sir.'

'Sure. Thanks Genny.'

Brennan was staring over at the kids playing on the soccer field as he hung up. She glanced at him and brushed her hair behind her ear. 'Can we go find a shower now?'

'Uh, yeah, sure. I'm not sure where…'

'Maybe we should find a camp site, a real one with water and power and amenities.'

'Okay. I think there's a map in the car, do you want to pick one out?'

Booth looked at her mildly, trying to stay as low-key as possible. He sensed her wanting to pull away, and he didn't think she'd react to his charm smile right now.

Bones nodded and stood up. 'Okay.' Booth followed her to the car, and she dug out the map and sat in the passenger seat flipping through the pages for a few minutes. 'How about this one?'

She held up a page with a large reserve marked off, and a few small icons indicating places for camping. He vaguely knew the area she'd picked— it was a few hours away, beautiful but not a huge tourist pull. 'Can I see?' He took the map from her and checked out the surrounding pages. It was largely national park but there were a number of towns nearby. It was almost three pm now. They could be there before dark, and have a chance to buy some dinner, pitch a tent, light a fire… Last night hadn't been much more than collapsing into bed, but they could definitely take time to actually _enjoy_ camping. They'd need marshmallows of course. To roast over the fire.

'Okay, ready to go?' he asked, slipping into the car on his side. Brennan nodded quietly. Booth started the hatchback and backed out of the parking lot onto the main road. He kept an eye out for a bakery—he didn't know about Bones, but he was starving. On the outskirts of the town he spotted one. He pulled up and got out, opening Bones' door on the other side. 'You want to grab some lunch?' he asked when she just sat there.

'Oh. I don't mind.'

_You don't mind_. 'I'll grab you something. Have you got the money there?'

'Oh, yes. I should give you half, here.' Bones handed him a stack of notes which he carefully slipped into his pocket. He didn't like using her money but there he couldn't do anything about it. Refusing to take it would be ridiculous. He just tried not to think about it too much, and made a note to pay her back.

Bones left her seatbelt done up and clearly had no intention of getting out. Booth closed her door and went into the shop. He bought two pieces of apple pie (he could always eat Bones' if she didn't want it), a large savoury twist loaf and a meat pie. Then he grabbed some drinks, juice and milk, paid for it all and carried the bag back to the car.

'Here you go, Bones. Spinach and feta. Try and eat something, okay?'

She took it and ripped off a tiny piece and nibbled on it. Close enough to eating for now, Booth decided. She clearly wanted space right now—which was probably fair enough. At Booth's apartment, there had been a tv, multiple rooms, workplaces to go to, friends to come visit. They were going to be together 24/7 for the foreseeable future with little outside contact to break it up. Any bad moods, any frustrations, they were just going to have to ride them out together. Booth stole another glance at Brennan as he turned left onto the main road, then flipped on some music as they cruised along the road toward the next stop.


	67. Chapter 67

It was a pretty nice drive. The afternoon sun was low and fortunately wasn't blinding Booth as he drove. The clouds were pink and orange. Brennan gazed at them, trying to empty her mind, slow her thoughts down. It was pointless to go over and over it, round in circles. Max was in trouble, could even be with Broadsky right now, and even though it didn't make any sense, Brennan felt responsible.

Booth sneaked a glance at her out the corner of his eye. She'd eventually finished off the bread twist, with a few pointed glances from him. They were about a mile away from the campsite, and they'd have just enough time to get set up for the night before it got dark.

'Here we go, Bones, how's this?' he said as he slowed the car and drove carefully onto a dirt track.

It did look pretty nice. Bones saw a sign welcoming visitors to the park. 'Are we supposed to have a permit?' she asked, reading the sign as they passed.

'We're s'posed to, but I think we'll be right. It's only one night and as long as no one checks…'

Brennan sighed happily to see a big brick amenities block. She wouldn't mind using up the entire hot water supply for a record-breaking shower.

Booth pulled up not too far from the shower block. He got out and started pulling out the tent. Brennan looked at him indecisively. 'Do you want some help?'

'Nah, I've got it. You go ahead.'

She nodded and grabbed some clothes and toiletries out of the car. She wanted some time away from Booth. All afternoon she'd had an uneasy sensation about being around Booth. She didn't know why. Well, that wasn't true—she did know why. But it was irrational. It wasn't real. It didn't make any sense.

She stepped into the shower and hung her clothes and towel over the door. The water ran cold for a few minutes and she stood shivering at arms' length from the icy spray. It was the best feeling she'd had all day when it finally turned hot and she stepped under the nozzle.

Booth. Even when he was right there, she couldn't stop thinking about him. It was ridiculous. She _knew_ they were only nightmares, knew it for a fact. She'd actually asked Booth if he had ever been there with her while she was captive, which was a ridiculous thought, and he'd said of course not. That was all she needed to know—if Booth said he wasn't there, then he hadn't been there. He'd assured her.

But right now she just felt afraid to go to sleep. She could sit up by the fire Booth was making. Maybe if she was really tired she'd have a dreamless sleep. It bothered her that she was so influenced by mere dreams. Involuntary neurons firing in the brain. Completely meaningless, rationally speaking.

She forced the thoughts out of her head. She wasn't going to dwell on the possibility of nightmares. Why did it scare her? She knew it was irrational. She hated feeling controlled by something so ephemeral as a dream.

She had to go back and sit with Booth. If she kept this up he would know something was wrong. Not that there was. _They're just stupid dreams. Not even real._ She could barely even remember the one from last night—all she'd had was the hazy emotional hangover. It was ridiculous to be worrying about something which, she not only couldn't control, but knew was imaginary. This was nothing she couldn't handle.

She grabbed her brush and combed the conditioner through her hair, just happy the water wasn't getting cold. She needed to get her mind off Booth. Russ. That was a safer topic. If both she and Max were being targeted, could Russ be in danger too? There wasn't much he could tell them, if they wanted information. He didn't know Max's whereabouts or how to get in contact with him. She wished she knew _why_ Broadsky was after Max. She just wanted to see her dad, tell him in person to be careful or go into hiding. She had a mixture of emotions when it came to Max, but ultimately he was family. Booth was always telling her about what family means, how strong those ties are. He'd found Max for her and convinced her to give him a second chance. She loved Max in spite of his shortcomings. It wasn't until he was in danger that she realised how deep those ties went. In spite of herself, she'd become emotionally attached to her father. She couldn't bear the thought of losing him again.

Booth was kindling a small fire in a well-used fire pit when she came out. She stopped and watched him for a moment, but he was smiling and he obviously knew. 'You wanna come give me a hand?'

'I'm quite proficient at starting a campfire. In grad school I went on a trip to Papua New Guinea—'

'I believe you, Bones. Mind passing me some of that wood?

She followed his gesture to a small pile of logs and twigs. 'Oh, sure.'

'Dang—I forgot to get marshmallows.'

Brennan dropped a few pieces of wood next to the fire pit. 'That's okay, I'm not used to eating sweets when I'm camping.'

'Aw, come on, you've got to have a soft-spot for smores. Everyone likes those.'

'I've never tried them. I… I was at a school camp once where people were eating them, but I didn't have any money for sweets since I was in foster care so…'

Booth looked up at her as she trailed off. He'd have to make a point of getting some into her in the next few days.

'Do we have anything for dinner?' she asked, just to change the subject.

'Whatever I tossed into the suitcase out of the pantry. You can see if there's anything good in there.'

Brennan went back to the car and unzipped the case. There were two tins of instant spaghetti and one large tin of peach slices. She grabbed them along with plates, forks and a can opener.

'Thanks, Bones,' Booth said, taking his as the fire started to crackle a branch of dead leaves. He passed the can opener back to her and dumped his spaghetti onto the plate. 'I should have thought of a saucepan,' he said, trying to hold the plate near enough to warm up without burning his hand.

'Do you think anyone told Parker we were supposed to be in custody?' Bones asked, twisting cold spaghetti around her fork.

'Probably not. I hope not. He's been in there long enough, I don't want to add disappointing him on top of that.'

'Disappointing? I don't see how you could disappoint him. You're a wonderful father.'

'Any kid would be dashed if they got their hopes up for nothing.'

'You mean, seeing you. I'm sure Parker is proud of you and is happy you're out here making the world a safer place for him.'

'Yeah. Best I can hope for is we catch these guys soon. Everyone just wants this to be over.'

Brennan's breath hitched at those last words, and she had no idea why. Of course Booth wanted this to be over. So did Parker. So did everyone.

'Where are we going to go?' she asked, partly just to try and ignore the way her stomach was churning.

'Well that's something we need to talk about. I've been thinking we should go to LA.'

'To LA, why?'

'Well that was where Broadsky's arms supplier is based.'

'And you think Broadsky might still be there. Are we… trying to find Broadsky or to get away from him?'

'Both, I guess, and I think it's unlikely Broadsky is in LA.'

'You think he's searching for us in D.C..'

'I think that he's either searching for us, or at least for someone, or for some_thing_. There are a lot of things he could be doing. We have an advantage because we know a lot of his connections. But for him looking for us, we could be anywhere.'

'Right.'

They ate in silence for a while. Booth kept throwing her furtive glances, but she was staring determinedly at her spaghetti. It was getting dark and chilly and Booth cleared a few sticks and rocks out of the way and lay on the ground close to the fire, pulling out the map to work out their route for tomorrow. Brennan finished eating and took the plates over to the amenities block where there was a sink.

They didn't have detergent or anything but she decided it would be good for their immune systems, especially when they were sleeping out of doors. She glanced back at the glow of Booth's fire. There wasn't anyone else in the campgrounds. She was already feeling uneasy, but was determined not to let that get in her way. She shook the plates to get most of the water off, still gazing at Booth. He'd put the map down and was rummaging for clothes in the back of the car.

She wondered where Angela was right now. Did she know where they really were, or think they were in a safehouse? Either way she'd probably be worried. Brennan had always been able to count on Angela, just to be there and to care, to be on her side when no one else was, no matter what. She felt a strange pang at not being able to see her, and suddenly wanted to call. Would that be reckless? It was a risk even having a phone. She shouldn't use it for foolish personal reasons like catching up with a friend.

Booth passed her in the dark on his way to the showers. He probably didn't wave to her because his eyes were still adjusting to the dark after being by the fire. Brennan headed back over to their tent, suddenly wanting to crawl in and hide.

She felt like a child playing pretend, unzipping the tent and imagining it was safe, that the flimsy water-resistant fabric and tiny zippers would guard her from axe-murderers or bears. She knew better. She wanted to be asleep, so using her sense of touch more than anything, without a torch, she got into her sleeping bag. At least, there was a fifty percent chance it was her sleeping bag.

It was a long time before she heard someone near their fireplace. For a second she was panicked but the person coughed and it sounded like Booth. She could hear him move around and pour water on the fire. She felt the sudden strong urge to get out of the tent, which now felt extremely small and restrictive, like the inside of a trunk or having a pillowcase pulled over your head. She forced herself to breathe deeply and slowly, refusing to give into an irrational fear. There was nothing stopping her from unzipping the tent and getting out. _If I could find the zip in the dark_, she thought. _There's no reason to feel like this_ she told herself firmly. She forced the thoughts our of her head and started practicing a meditation technique she'd learned in Taiwan, supposed to clear the mind and gain a sense of inner peace. If she focused her mind, she could do it. She'd always been able to in the past.

'Bones, you in there?' came Booth's voice.

'Oh. Yeah,' she replied.

'I'm gonna take a walk around the grounds, I'll be back soon, okay?'

'Oh. Sure Booth.'

She heard him move off and went back to meditating. It must have been five or ten minutes when she heard the sound of his footfalls. She knew it was him this time, because if she paid attention it was easy to discern the number of steps per minute he took, and to assess his weight by the sound caused by each step. All of Booth's kinaesthetics were familiar. He unzipped the tent and crawled in beside her, but suddenly she felt the need to get out. She forced herself to breathe steadily as he got into his sleeping bag, and as soon as there was space she slipped outside.

'You okay Bones?'

'Yeah I'm fine.' She went back up to the amenities block just for something to do, and after washing her face again and drinking some water she came back and sat by the warm coals of the fire.

'Bones,' came Booth's voice from inside the tent.

'I'm fine, Booth. I'm just going to sit outside for a while,' Brennan said confidently.

'Don't stay up too late. You wake me if you need anything.'

'Goodnight Booth.'

She listened to the soft night-time sounds of the campsite—nocturnal birds or bats flying around and calling from far away, rustling leaves, Booth's steady rhythmic breathing. The fire was long since dead and it was cold. She debated getting back into the tent. She didn't want to. She was never usually claustrophobic, and last night she'd been too tired to really register where she was. When it got so cold that she had to either re-light the fire or curl up in a sleeping bag, she finally crawled into the tent, turning her bed around so her head was near the door and leaving it partly unzipped. She managed to fall asleep, her head next to Booth's feet, and if she dreamt anything she didn't remember it in the morning.


	68. Chapter 68

Brennan was sleeping heavily when Booth woke up. It was cold, probably because she hadn't zipped the tent up. He managed to climb over her and went to get changed and make some breakfast.

'Hi,' Bones said ten minutes later, as he was pouring dry cereal into a bowl.

'Hey. Did you sleep okay?'

'Yeah. Thanks.' Brennan rubbed her eyes to help wake up.

'We should get going soon as we can, it's nine already. It's a long drive to LA.'

'You're right, it should take well over twenty-four hours to get there, perhaps closer to thirty-four.'

She wasn't usually good at reading people, but she could see Booth was being hesitant and cautious with her thismorning, like she was a lit firework that could go off in any direction. It was safe ground for both of them to talk about something factual and objective.

'Yeah,' he said. 'The sooner we get there the better our chance of getting information.'

'I'll go get changed.' Bones grabbed some clothes out of the car. 'Are we going to stop overnight?'

'Realistically we'll have to.' Booth shovelled the cereal into his mouth and Bones took that as her cue to go get ready. She was back in record time and found Booth packing up the tent into the car.

'I left out the bread for you,' he said, pointing to half a loaf and a jar of peanut butter.

'Thanks.' She made a sandwich and left it on her seat in the car so she could help him pack up. Neither of them said much. They were both in need of a strong coffee and a several-day drive wasn't exactly appealing.

Twenty minutes later Bones had double-checked they had everything and they were on their way. She stared out the window for the first few hours, even after they'd stopped for double-strength lattes. Booth turned on the radio, since neither of them could talk for 36 hours, even if they wanted to.

It was time in limbo, really. It was too soon to be planning out every step they'd take in LA. Brennan kept meditating, just to switch her mind off. By eleven pm, they were pulling into a remote bed and breakfast on the side of the highway.

The road trip continued for two more days. It felt a lot like they were back in Booth's apartment, being with someone close and familiar, but there was a growing uneasiness that neither of them was prepared to touch. Booth hoped that when they got to LA and could actually get moving on the case, things would go back to normal.

'So where do we go when we get to LA?' Brennan asked on the third afternoon. 'We should be there in three or four hours. Do you have a plan?'

'I have an address. Shaw did up some quick reports for me on everything they have from the shooting. The two agents were following a lead I chased up from D.C. … We'll start with the local FBI branch for support and resources, see what they've got on our guy. Then we'll start looking.'

Brennan nodded. By seven pm, they were pulling up outside the LA FBI. Booth thought about leaving Bones in the car but he didn't want her out of his sight. He opened her door and took her hand, the first contact they'd had in a couple of days. Brennan noticed the scars along her arm. It had been over a week since she'd put on that bio-oil. He used to do it for her every day. She suddenly missed Booth, even though he was right there, and looped her arm through his as they went up the stairs and to the front desk.

'Good evening, you must be Agent Booth,' said the woman at reception as he held up his badge. 'We wondered if you might come in, you're supposed to be in protective custody… Our condolences about the incident earlier this week. Did you know the two agents involved?'

'Yeah,' Booth said, glancing at Brennan.

'I'm sorry for your loss. You'll want to talk to Agent Forster, he's been liaising with Agent Shaw about this case.' The receptionist made a call and chatted to Forster, scribbling something down as he talked.

'Agent Booth, Forster suggests you come down to our undercover department to get outfitted, and he's offered to meet you at a bar to fill you in.'

'Why?' Brennan asked, looking mainly at Booth.

'The FBI is one of the places Broadsky will likely be watching. The sooner we get off the grid the better.'

'I'll take you down to Undercover Ops,' the receptionist said, coming out from behind the desk. 'This way please.'

Booth grinned at Brennan and got her to smile back. He knew how much she liked dressing up and going undercover. Of all the departments in the FBI the undercover resource section was her favourite.

'Here we go, you two knock yourselves out. I'll have someone move your car,' she offered. Booth handed her the keys.

Brennan was already investigating the racks of clothes and accessories. 'Look at this one,' she said, holding out a spangly red dress. It was close-fitting and garish. 'Wouldn't this be fun?'

'We're trying to _disappear_, Bones.'

'Yes, I know… I just thought it was amusing.' She kept going through the racks. 'What about you? Are you going to leave your facial hair unshaven, or get a wig?'

Booth's hand automatically drifted up to his chin. It was a bit more than a five-o-clock shadow. He'd been letting it grow the last few days without really thinking about it. 'I'll pass on a wig, those things are too much effort. I'll take these sunglasses though.'

Brennan found a long brown wig, slightly darker than her natural hair colour. It had a little side-fringe and the length was full without layers. She tried it on. 'That's not bad,' Booth approved. 'It's just different enough.'

'Should I go blonde?' she asked uncertainly. 'This is sort of similar…'

'No, no. Don't. I don't like blonde. That one's perfect.'

He sounded so sure of this Brennan shrugged and laid the wig on a chair along with a tunic dress and some shirts that looked like things Angela would pick out—things slightly too trendy for Brennan, but that would make her disappear into the fashion-scape of the Californian capital.

Booth had a tattered denim jacket and a flannelette shirt, and also an upper-class golf-club ensemble. He was going for a few different looks. 'Stock up on anything you think you'll need, Bones. Not just for LA.'

She nodded and took out some rough farming clothes that would make her look more androgynous, a few casual dresses, a second wig with tight curls and a few pairs of shoes. She grabbed some different makeup and beauty supplies. Booth took a smart-casual outfit and went into a changeroom, and Brennan did the same. A few minutes later they were both done.

'You all set?' the receptionist asked, popping her head into the room.

'Yeah. Come on Bones, let's get out of here.'

The receptionist took them out the back entrance where the car was parked. 'You'll want a street map, and the address where Forster will meet you,' she said, handing Booth a map with a red circle around the bar. 'Would you like to exchange your vehicle while you're here?'

Booth and Brennan glanced at each other. 'Sure,' Booth said. 'We'll go something similar, though.'

'Blue hatchback? Same year, different make?'

'Great.'

The three of them transferred the contents of one car to the other, then the receptionist waved them off as they got in and headed out to the bar.

'Now Bones, I want you to hang back for this, okay? We're more recognisable together, and you're in enough danger already without doing field work. So just, you know, lay low—'

'I want to help, Booth. Besides, you might need my skill set, and if I'm there what he says might prompt me to remember things.'

'You can stay close, but I just want you drinking your mocktail, not drawing any attention to yourself.'

'Mocktail.'

'Yeah, I don't want you drinking until I'm confident you have absolutely everything out of your system.'

'It's been over seven weeks since you found me, Booth. And I am perfectly capable of being in the field as your partner. This is what we do.'

'This is not what we do. We don't go looking for people who want to kill us.'

'I want to help.'

'And you will help, by keeping your head down. Just humour me Bones. For my peace-of-mind.'

Brennan finally nodded and went back to looking out the window as they cruised through the city. As annoying as Booth could be with his constant attempts to over-protect her and rein her in, she paradoxically liked that about him. Plus, they'd had this conversation hundreds of times. It was reassuringly familiar.

It was a Wednesday night, but the city was buzzing anyway. There was a muffled, thumping bass coming from a nightclub on their left. 'That's us up ahead,' Booth said, pointing to a bar further up the street.

Bones smoothed down her skirt. She'd chosen a black pencil skirt and a cute apricot asymmetrical top along with the dark-brown wig. 'You look fine, Bones,' Booth said as he pulled into a parking space a few buildings away from the bar. He slipped a few coins into the parking metre and opened Brennan's door as she was putting her shoes on. She raised her eyebrows at the gesture and he ignored it. 'You sure you're alright in those shoes?' he asked a little sceptically.

'I know how to walk in heels, Booth. I've done it thousands of times.'

'Okay. Come on, stay where I can see you.'

Brennan rolled her eyes and took his arm. She thought they looked pretty convincing as an ordinary couple out for drinks. Angela would be proud. She tried to think and act like Ange to pull it off.

The bar was packed at the front of the room, people convening around groups of leather armchairs, crowding onto a dance floor at one end, and standing around a massive pool table. Booth nudged Brennan and indicated a man at the back of the bar, with a scotch on-the-rocks he hadn't touched. They made their way over and were pleased to find they could hear each other talk without having to shout.

'Forster, right?' Booth slid onto a bar stool next to him. Brennan sidled up beside him and ordered a virgin pina colada, which was the first thing that came to mind. Booth signalled for a second scotch on-the-rocks and began talking to Forster.

'Seeley Booth, nice to meet you.'

'Joshua Forster. Likewise.'

Forster took a folder out of his jacket and passed it to Booth. 'This is all the information we've compiled from the shooting. Crime scene photos, injuries and cause-of-death of the two agents we lost.'

Booth quietly looked through the file. Trent and Jeff, the two D.C. agents killed were represented with their ID photos, details of the shots and injuries sustained, photographs of the area they had fallen after their bodies had been respectfully removed, and cause of death information from the autopsies.

The incident report detailed how the agents had located the arms developer's building, and gone in to bring him in for questioning. Forster had been their back-up, keeping an eye out from a distance to see if the guy would make a run for it. There was seemingly no-one on the premises when Trent, from D.C. and Marcus from L.A. went in. Trent was updating Forster over the phone as they moved. Coming from the other direction was Jeff, who was in contact with Shaw as he covered the back entrance to the building.

Agents Trent and Marcus found a large stash of weapons and equipment, including a gun that was plugged into a computer, and a case of silicon microchips. They didn't get a chance to seize any of the items because as Trent was narrating their finds to Forster, a series of gun shots sounded and the phone hit the ground. It was unconfirmed who fired the shots. Forster could hear shouting and someone yelling out in pain, then he heard the horrible sounds of what he soon found out were Trent's last moments. When the backup gained entry Trent was found shot in the temple, and Marcus alive but bleeding through the mouth. In the street behind Jeff was gunned down by Broadsky who then picked up the phone and spoke to Shaw. The only consolation Forster could give was that Trent and Jeff's deaths had been quick.

'Marcus is still in hospital recovering from surgery to remove six bullets. The weapons developer and Broadsky were long gone by the time backup arrived,' Forster told Booth.

'Broadsky spoke to Agent Shaw.'

'Yes. There's a transcript of her conversation with Jeff, and then Broadsky when he picked up the phone and threatened you and Dr Brennan.'

Booth read through the transcript of the last part of the phone call between Genny and Jeff. Broadsky had said, _'We had an arrangement, Seeley. You should have stopped looking for me, you and your girl. You haven't kept your part of the bargain, so I'm coming for you next. Games are over.'_

Broadsky clearly intended the message to get to him, Booth thought, not caring who was on the other end of the line. He took a quick glance at Bones, still nursing her mocktail and surveying the bar. They had to be so careful. Broadsky had an appetite for revenge, and so far it hadn't been satisfied by either torture or murder.

'Did you find anything useful on the premises?' Booth asked, not wanting to dwell on this.

'Well, we seized all the equipment and half-built weapons. There weren't any blueprints or notes though, so it's essentially just a bunch of parts. About as helpful as looking at a timber yard, and trying to imagine a grand piano. Nothing we could really use.'

Booth nodded. He flipped the page over to see photographs of a dozen part-built guns. The LA tech team had examined everything and put detailed reports about each item, and while the designs were potentially next-gen, there was nothing Booth thought Broadsky would be that interested in.

'The developer could have taken anything when he took off— but we do know the gun Trent mentioned attached to the computer was gone. So were the microchips.'

Brennan listened closely to what Booth and Forster were saying while looking over toward the dance floor with a bored expression. A man was walking over, clearly about to try to hit on her, so Bones casually slid an arm across Booth's shoulders and made a show of flirtatiously twirling her hair and asking him if he was finished yet so they could dance. Booth spotted the man hovering and played along, pulling her in closer around the waist.

'Bones, I need you to keep a lookout for anyone taking too much interest in us, okay?' Booth said quietly, once the hopeful guy had given up and gone to prowl elsewhere. Brennan nodded and turned around, but not moving away so she could still hear every word. Booth shook his head with a smile. She was just itching to jump right into the hornet's nest of field work without a second thought- Bones was getting her spark back.

He turned back to Forster. 'Do we have any pictures of this guy, a name?…'

'There's a blurry shot at the back of the file, here. Not much to go on. We don't have a name or any conclusive forensic evidence. We scoured the building, found a few strands of hair in the carpet, nothing to match it to though. I'm sorry I couldn't get you more than this, but to be honest we didn't get any new leads out of this. I know this is all the worse when two good agents died.'

'Yeah, well they died an honourable death. Serving their country. It's never in vain,' Booth said, looking bristled by this. Brennan slipped a hand onto his shoulder and squeezed as she scanned the bar, looking bored but aloof.

'You keep the file, Booth. I've put some direct numbers in there if you need us for anything.'

'Yeah. Well this is an ongoing investigation involving two states now.'

'We'll be on traffic cameras, get our graphic artists working on a better ID from that photo.'

'You know what, send it to the Jeffersonian. They've got an amazing team, if anyone can get and ID it'll be them.'

Brennan smiled proudly at this praise of her team. It felt so good to be working a case. Even this case. She felt like another part of her was falling back into place, after being taken away for so long. It wasn't sensible or rational, but she wanted to stay at this bar, covertly going over the file all night.

Booth got up and nodded his thanks to Forster. Shaking hands would be a bit much. Forster stayed where he was and turned his attention to his drink.

'Do you want to dance?' Brennan asked hopefully as they made their way to the front of the bar.

'Bones, we have to get going. Let's just go find a motel and get some dinner. We're laying low, remember?'

They slipped out the door onto the street. It was quieter on the street now— the nightclub was open and everyone was inside. Brennan stopped to take her heels off. Booth wanted to say 'I told you', but he was feeling pretty proud of her right now. How far she'd come in the last seven weeks. All of her was still in there, and he was just happy to see her finding that.

Booth would mentally kick himself after tonight for what happened next, but both he and Brennan were acting on pure instinct. They weren't thinking about consequences. The man could have come from any one of the businesses on the street but they didn't notice him until he was snatching Brennan's bag out of her hand.

She yelled out in surprise as he grabbed it, and instinctively stretched out a leg to trip him over. She was dead-on accurate and the man stumbled, giving Booth enough time to grab him by the collar and slam him against the wall.

'Okay, okay, take it!' the man said, waving the bag. 'Let me go—'

He swore a few times at them as Booth shoved him harder onto the wall and Brennan took her bag. Booth glared at the guy. 'What the hell are you doing? I should take you in for this.'

Bones slipped the bag onto her shoulder and stared at them, still in shock. After about twenty seconds Booth took a step back and released the guy. He bolted off down the street.

'You let him go? Shouldn't—shouldn't you arrest him for theft?' Brennan asked, crinkling her forehead.

'Bones… Today I'm not a cop.' Booth scrubbed a hand over his face.

'What's wrong?'

Booth looked off down the street where the man was still running as fast as he could. 'We're trying to stay low, but now… the whole criminal element is going to know about us.'

'They don't know who we are.'

'Broadsky does. In criminal circles, word gets around. Intel on cops is like currency, Bones… I'm sorry, but I can't risk us staying here. We need to get out of L.A.'

She picked up her shoes where she dropped them. 'Tonight?'

Booth started back to the car. 'I'm not taking chances. You saw the file, those two agents were shot in cold blood. The arms dealer knew they were coming. Never underestimate the connections people have… The best criminals, the ones who don't get caught, they have their cities wired. Broadsky will find out about this. We're a lot more recognisable when it's the both of us. He'll hear the description, put two and two together… He'll know we were here.'

He unlocked the car and they both got in. Brennan felt horrible. 'I shouldn't have tripped him.'

'No, don't blame yourself. Don't go back and dissect the past Bones. You reacted. We both did.'

'I just… I'm tired. I want a real bed,' she said on a whisper, after a few moments.

'Put your seat back. I'll find us a place. Wake you when we get there.'

Brennan nodded and reclined her chair a little. Booth found her hand and squeezed, and she squeezed back, and Booth kept it there until she was asleep as he drove into the night.

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**A/N sorry about the wait between updates! You'll never guess what I did today… I was baking my sister's wedding cake, 2 tiers of this amazing white chocolate fruitcake… and I dropped it. It took me like a week to make this thing cos you have to make fruit mince and let it mature… gah! You gotta laugh… Anyway, hope you enjoyed the chapter, let me know what you think :o)**


	69. Chapter 69

EDIT: new chapter 69 is now here, below the old author's note, decided to leave the note in so your can see the pretty pictures if you want to :o)

…

Sorry this isn't a real chapter. I wanted to share with you guys part of the reason I haven't written for a while—it's been a pretty special part of my life this year and I think you're gonna like it.

The link's below, in it you'll find lots of pretty pictures of my little sister's wedding and the cake I made her! This is cuter than looking at puppies and I've never cried at a wedding before but this was the exception, it was so unpretentious and genuine. He's such a loving, humble, hardworking guy who doesn't know how good a catch he is (he tutors kids, gonna be a primary school teacher…aww) and my lil sis is sweet and shy and smart. You can kind of see their personalities in the photos. There are captions underneath telling you who's who and which one's me :o)

I hope this link will work

profile/silveribis1

profile/silveribis1

_EDIT: ok so the link isn't posting, just go to photobucket and search for my profile, which is silveribis1 :o) When the search says 'no matches were found blah blah blah', underneath it says are you looking for this user's profile and just click on that. And I will hopefully be back to writing soon!_

….

CH 69

Booth turned off the engine and got out of the hatchback. There was a little office with the light still on, despite it being three in the morning. He pulled on the flannelette shirt over his clothes—it was time to become someone else.

He knocked sharply on the door and waited. A minute or two later a little old man shouldering a rifle came out in slippers and a dressing gown. 'What's this all, eh?' he grumbled.

'It's Jim, I called you a couple hours ago about staying the night?'

The old man squinted out at the car. 'Jim and…'

'Sheila. We got so lost— twenty miles, damn GPS. Them things are useless,' Booth said, sounding like a fairly convincing hillbilly, despite being incredibly tired.

The owner squinted harder at the car. Brennan was still fast asleep, a pillow sandwiched between her head and the window.

'Yeeah, alrighty then. Y'all go on in, keep it down though. Here's the key, lock the gate up behind ya.'

Booth took the key. 'Thanks.'

'Welcome to Happy Luck Paradise Ranch.'

Booth raised an eyebrow at the name, but just tossed and caught the key, flashed a winning smile and headed back to the car.

'Don't forget to lock up! Don't want them horses gettin' out,' the man called after him. Booth raised a hand to say 'no worries' and climbed back into the car.

He started the car up and slowly drove up the dirt track. There was a wide gate ahead, and Booth put the car in neutral, got out and unlocked it. He could see a couple of horses in the headlight beams, asleep standing up. He got back in the car, drove through and closed and locked the gate.

Brennan stirred as they drove over a rough patch of road with lots of rocks and potholes. 'Hey Bones,' Booth smiled.

'Hi,' she said drowsily. 'Are we there?'

'Yep, home-sweet-home.' Booth manoeuvred over a wheel rut onto the empty camping field. Brennan rubbed her eyes to wake up and Booth got out and pulled the tent and sleeping bags from the boot. He'd never been so grateful to have a tent that just popped up. He shoved the sleeping bags inside, took out some foam bed rolls and started stripping off the FBI undercover clothes.

Brennan grabbed her pyjamas and got changed behind the car. She was so tired she nearly fell over into the mud a couple of times but finally stumbled out to the tent. Booth was already inside, using her spare phone as a torch to get into his sleeping bag. The last thing Brennan thought was that they must have switched sleeping bags because hers smelled like Booth. She was going to say goodnight, but both of them were asleep before she got there.

.

Brennan was up before Booth. She'd had a few hours more sleep than him so was careful not to wake him up. She ate a bowl of dry cereal then went exploring the camp grounds.

It was a nice property—she counted five horses grazing. They were fenced in from the road beyond the gate but were free to move around the field where the tent was. She wondered what Booth would think if she brought a horse over to stick its head inside and wake him up.

Amused by that idea, she walked around the perimeter of the grounds. Or part of them at least—there were fairly thick trees at the back of the property. She saw a sign saying 'Happy Luck Paradise Ranch', which seemed a rather absurd name for a piece of land. Maybe she just didn't understand. She'd have to ask Booth about that later.

There was a small amenities block not far away—though 'single stall' might be a more accurate description. There was a distinct lack of plumbing, too, but she eventually discovered a tap way out near the front gate which she used to fill up their water bottles.

She judged it to be around midday by the position of the sun. Booth would have to be waking up by now. She headed back to the tent and the car, to see Booth dressed in tattered jeans and a flannie, sitting on a stump outside the tent.

'Good morning,' she said, coming to join him.

'Hey. You uh, sleep okay?'

'Yes,' she said. She dragged over a log and sat down.

'You sure?'

Brennan looked at him slightly confused. 'Yes, I was tired before and now I'm not. That indicates that I slept well.'

Booth looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, then went back to his breakfast.

'Did… you sleep well?' she asked after a moment. It seemed polite to ask.

'Like a log.'

'You look like you're worrying about something.'

Booth opened his mouth to say something then closed it. He had heard her whimpering and tossing for half an hour last night, but she didn't seem to remember. It was a good thing, really. Booth knew whenever he had nightmares, getting up and doing something active to take his mind off things always helped. 'I'm not worrying. Just thinking about where to go next. I guess you've checked out the campsite?'

'It's quite beautiful. Are you wearing those FBI clothes as a sort of costume?'

'Oh yeah, I was meaning to tell you about that. I'm Jim, and you're Sheila. We're bogan hillbillies. About as far from cool Californians as you can get.'

'Sheila, Jim. Got it.'

They sat quietly for a few minutes, just enjoying the stillness. The last two campsites had been peaceful little oases near busy roads, but here they were a million miles from anywhere. Brennan could feel her pulse racing. She felt almost panicky, and she had no idea why. This was probably the safest place they'd been so far. There was nothing here to be afraid of. Right?

'Where are we going next?' she said a little too shakily. Booth pretended not to notice. He didn't know what was wrong, and he didn't know how to fix it. He hoped that if they ignored problems for long enough, they'd just go away.

'I'd like to stay here for one more night. After that it's game theory. We know Broadsky is looking for us—the question is, how can we use that against him.'

Brennan nodded. 'Right.'

'Do we go somewhere he'd expect to find us, use ourselves as bait? Or plant a rumour about where we are, or try and track him, or just wait it out til he makes a move?'

Bones plucked a piece of grass and rolled it between her fingers while she listened. 'I don't know. I don't know what to do,' she said. 'Booth, why… Why do you think he's he after us?' she asked finally, looking him in the eye.

The vulnerability in her face threw Booth for a moment. Just before, she'd been denying the nightmares she was obviously having, acting tough as a honey badger, exactly the hot-headed woman who was his partner. 'He's after me, Bones. Not you. He wants me to leave him alone, to stop looking for him.'

'Why don't you?' she said quietly.

'Because I want to be able to sleep at night, knowing the people I care about are safe. Knowing my kid can grow up without someone who could target him and use him as leverage.'

'Like I was,' Bones said without flinching, staring at the ground.

'Yes.'

'You… You said, there was an agreement. That you broke, with Broadsky.'

'There wasn't really an agreement. Broadsky, he wanted me to work with him, but I refused. He wants to live and kill by his own rules and I can't let that stand.'

'That's because you are a good man.'

'Thanks, Bones.' Booth smiled at her earnestness. He could tell with Bones, when she said something, she meant it. She'd never give false praise— she always said exactly what was on her mind. 'But I mean, I can't have it both ways. Either I let Broadsky go, he leaves us alone and all this ends, or I bring him in to face the consequences of his actions.'

'You can't let him go after the things he's done, the lives he's taken.'

Booth smiled a little. 'No, I can't.' He felt a pang of guilt. He wouldn't say so to Bones, but he was after Broadsky for a much more selfish reason than cosmic justice. He wanted to know what was done to his partner, to have answers, to know the truth. How to fix things. In a sense, this hope was just a castle in the sky. He'd told himself day in and day out, that finding the people responsible for hurting Bones, forcing them to divulge their actions, would somehow equip him to fix her. But sitting here in this field, watching her try to bounce back, and move forward, and trust, and heal… he knew this whole situation, the whole of _her_, was more than he, probably either of them, could understand.

He wanted the best for her, but as much as he wanted to, he couldn't do it for her—not even with all the information he wanted. She couldn't just be fixed with a magic wand, everything neatly tied up and resolved and packed away. It had been one thing to hunt Broadsky when Bones was safe in D.C., but out here, if anything went wrong, he was her only protection. As far as she knew, they reason they were out here was to rescue Max, hoping Broadsky would lead them to him, and if possible, Booth would arrest him. Was he putting her in more danger by dragging her along on his obsessive chase for answers? He sensed that Brennan was trying to move on, to put the past behind her regardless. Would knowing what happened necessarily be a good thing for her—would it just make things ten times worse? And why did he feel he couldn't just tell her the truth?

While Booth was guiltily churning away, Bones was contentedly twirling a stalk of grass between two fingers. She brought it to her lips and chewed, savouring the sweet starchy taste, smiling as she noticed Booth's flannelette jacket out of the corner of her eye.

'We're pretty convincing hillbillies, you know. What should I wear to look more like Sheila?'

Booth looked up as though startled. 'Sorry. Um… don't know. It's all in the back seat of the car, you wanna go check it out?' He handed her the keys and she went to open the car.

She'd picked out a variety of disguises from the FBI costume department. Half of what she'd picked she'd forgotten with the excitement of last night. There was a sundress, in case they went somewhere warm, a pair of khaki cargo pants if she needed to dress like a tomboy or go hiking, a few tops which could have come straight from Angela's wardrobe… 'Aha,' she said, pulling out a plaid button-up blouse. You couldn't get much more country than a top made out of a curtain. She grabbed a pair of jeans and made her way over to the amenities block in the corner of the campgrounds. There were a few horses grazing happily near the gate, one of them looking like it wanted to pull a Houdini and escape. Brennan smiled at it. She'd always wanted a horse. Maybe she could ride one of them while they were here.

Booth heard the gate creak open and the little old man who owned the site make his way over.

'Mornin' Jim,' he said as he got within hearing range. 'How're you and Sheila settlin' in?"

'We're both great,' Booth said, running a hand through his hair to mess it up a bit.

The owner looked around a bit and spoke a bit quieter. 'I'm expectin' a school group here tomorrow, just called to confirm the booking. Just to let you know. You're welcome to stay on, but thought I'd better tell you. Last month I forgot to tell the missus we were expecting a football team and she had a right start when twenty of 'em piled into the office…'

'Hah, right. Actually we're only staying one more night. I can pay the camping fee now if you want.' Booth saw Bones heading back over, looking country but gorgeous in a blue plaid top, jeans and the long brown wig. The owner followed Booth's gaze as she joined them. 'Sheila, this is…'

'Oh. Name's Harold, must have forgotten to tell you again. Happens with old age. Nice to meet you.'

Brennan nodded, not too sure that she could sound hillbilly without Booth having to tell the man she'd swallowed the dictionary.

'No rush on the fee, just whenever you're ready,' Harold told Booth. 'The missus is making her fresh lemonade today, if y'all want to come down for a drink.'

'Thanks,' Booth said. Brennan smiled politely. Booth was pulling off the character well, and perhaps unintentionally he came across as brooding and restrained. She looked him over, not really meaning to. Perched on a log, with more than a five-o-click shadow, he looked rougher and stronger than usual. For some reason Brennan felt inanely shy.

Harold headed back to the house and Brennan wondered if he'd noticed anything pass between her and Booth. She wondered if Booth had. She didn't think she wanted him to. She wasn't ready to feel like this—she knew she'd had a nightmare last night, even if she couldn't remember it. About him. Hurting her. The more she _felt_, the more out of control things got. She just wanted everything to _stop_, so she could be the one in control. She felt more like a ragdoll in a washing machine.

'You alright, Bones?' Booth asked, looking up at her.

'Yes,' she said quickly. 'I uh, I'm just going to go for another walk.'

'But you've been walking all…' Booth trailed off as she strode away. 'All morning,' he finished quietly.

He decided to give her some space. He got the food suitcase out of the back and wrote down a list of things they'd need to buy. It was a bit empty, aside from a packet of dried pasta and a few bananas Food was definitely top of the list—he suspected they'd want to eat out a fair bit, because there are only so many times you can eat cold canned spaghetti. He glanced over at Brennan who was standing with one of the horses at the far end of the paddock. He wondered If Harold would let her try and ride one. He'd never asked if Bones knew how to ride a horse, but there had to be a good chance. This was a woman who learned to scuba dive with the time she saved not watching tv.

Booth headed down to the office to ask Harold about it. 'There he is,' said an old lady smiling out the door. 'You here after lemonade?'

Booth stepped inside and politely took the cup she was holding out. 'Wow, thank you.'

'Betty here was just saying how good it is to have a few smaller groups come to stay here,' Harold said.

'I'm getting to old to entertain all our guests but I never learn, I keep over-exerting myself,' she said brightly.

'Well your lemonade is fantastic,' Booth said.

'Betty here will have twenty, thirty people crammed out the back veranda, serving up dinner and desert…'

'We have to charge, of course, couldn't afford to do It for free but they love it, keep coming back.'

'There ain't a restaurant around for miles,' Booth said politely.

'Exactly. She's one of a kind.'

'I've just come down to pay, and I'm wondering if y'all let people ride those horses.'

Harold nodded and put the money through, then took Booth out the back to a small stable where there were a few saddles and a bunch of other equipment to care for the animals.

Half an hour later he'd helped the old man catch a horse and saddle it up, and he was leading it back into the paddock to find Bones. _This is exactly what we need to get through today_, he thought. _We're going to go insane just sitting around, waiting to plan our next move._

Brennan was on the far side of the paddock randomly picking flowers. She hurriedly tossed the bunch away when she saw Booth. It was such a stupid girly thing to do and for some reason she didn't want him to see. She was pretty impressed that he'd gone and got a horse saddled for her though. She hadn't even said anything. How did he know she wanted to ride? How much else of her was he seeing without her realising?

She pushed the crazy circular thoughts from her head and smiled at Booth as he reached her. 'Hi.'

'Hi Bones. Guess what? This horse, get this, is named Skeleton Key. Thought it would be the perfect one for you.'

'Oh. That's a strange name for a horse. Although in our culture racing horses are given unusual names in order to be the only one with a name and clearly identified in gambling circles—'

'And Harold said he's a retired racing horse.'

'Oh. Did he ever win a race?'

'Don't know. It's usually the weirdest names that win, you know.'

'Well it makes sense that each year the names get stranger as all the obvious names are taken—'

'You know how to ride?'

'Of course I do.'

'I'm still not convinced you're ready to climb up by yourself, come here—'

Brennan huffed but accepted his help, standing on his linked hands to climb onto the saddle. 'I'm feeling a lot stronger, you know.'

'Yeah, with all the food you eat and all the exercise you've been getting sitting in the car.'

'I mean it! I really feel… pretty good.'

'I'm not going to stop looking out for you just because you feel better today,' Booth warned her.

'Hah. It's okay. You're… you're a good friend, Booth.'

'A good friend,' he said, turning the phrase over in his mouth. Of course, that's what they were. Good friends. 'Yeah.'


	70. Chapter 70

*A/N

New material has been posted under the previous chapter, under exciting wedding fluff, so that the posted chapter numbers match up with the story chapters :o) So go back and read that one first! :o)

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Brennan smiled as Booth held onto the reins, leading her slowly around the campground. She'd told him twice that she was fine and could manage a horse perfectly well, thank you, but he wasn't letting go.

'If you fall off or something, it'll be my fault and I don't want to have to take you to a hospital.'

'It's just a horse, Booth, not Russian Roulette.'

'And it's been raining. Look, there are rocks and patches of mud, and sticks you could trip over. I'm staying right here, Bones, end of story.'

Brennan shrugged and just enjoyed the sensation of being about twice her normal height, and feeling the warmth of the beautiful creature against her hands and legs. She ran her hand along the horse's neck as he walked. He smelled wonderful, like oats and cinnamon and grass. _Skeleton Key_, she thought to herself. A skeleton key can supposedly open any lock. This horse was calm and placid. He didn't seem at all fazed by either of them. He'd probably been so well trained as a race horse he was used to being led and ridden, but in retirement he was happy just to walk.

Her gaze fell to Booth, turning the horse as they got to a corner in the fence. 'Do you want to ride him?' she asked.

'Me? No, it's okay. You're a bigger animal lover than me.'

'Don't you like horses? You're very good with him.'

'Of course I do, everybody likes horses. But I just, you know, I like seeing you happy.'

He turned and caught her eye and she gripped the saddle a bit more tightly. If he kept smiling at her like that she really was going to fall off, and then he probably wouldn't let her so much as walk to the bathroom by herself. She needed to think about something besides Booth.

She glanced off in the direction of the owners' place. This place was very wild and secluded. Now that she noticed it, she began to feel uneasy. She remembered feeling uneasy when she walked around the rounds thismorning. Something about this place didn't sit well with her. Which was irrational and ridiculous—she loved wild open spaces, new places to learn about, it was one of the reasons she loved going on digs. What was the matter with her?

She wanted to get off the horse and go hide in the tent. She breathed deeply and closed her eyes. She would _not_ give in to stupid irrational impulses. Somewhere in the distance a shot was fired. _Probably just a stray animal_, she told herself. _Or a predator trying to eat someone's chickens._ _Happens all the time_.

She looked down at Booth again. It had worked—she didn't feel like falling off the horse because of Booth. She felt like jumping off and running, in the opposite direction to that shot.

'Booth. Can we stop?'

He looked up at her confused. 'I thought you were having fun, sure you can stop. Everything alright?'

'Of course.'

'Okay…' Booth didn't look convinced but he got the horse to stop and helped Brennan climb down. 'You wanna come help brush him down and get the gear off?'

She didn't. Which was stupid, because of course she wanted to go brush the horse. It was special to get to help groom a beautiful animal. 'Sure.'

She strode ahead of Booth and Skeleton Key. Was that a creepy name for a horse? Did Booth think she was creepy? She glanced over her shoulder and Booth smiled at her. She quickly looked straight ahead. If she got there first, Booth wouldn't think she was scared. Which she wasn't. That would be ridiculous.

The stable was a rickety old building, with some of the wood rotted and eaten by termites. But apart from that, everything was clean and well-maintained. She found the grooming brush as Booth brought the horse in behind her.

'So how many horses did you count out there?' Booth asked.

'Oh… five. Two brown, two brown-and-white, one black.'

Booth unbuckled the saddle and pulled it off along with the blankets. Bones went up and started to brush its side as he took off the rein and bridle.

'There you go,' Booth said patting the horse on the nose. Bones finished one side and came around to do the other side. 'Don't stand behind the horse!' Booth said.

She had completely forgotten. 'Oh. I know that.' She stepped out of kicking range and started grooming the other side.

The air in the stable was heavy and quiet. And damp. Brennan concentrated on the horse, pushing every other thought from her mind. She was not afraid. There was no reason to be. She had been fine the last three nights… although those nights had been quick pit-stops to sleep and eat as they drove across the country. This was the first day she'd spent any length of time at a campsite.

'I'm gonna go grab a shower, Bones.'

'Oh, right. Where are they? I didn't see—'

'They're just over there, the owners use them too, tank water.'

'Right.'

Brennan watched him head over, then quickly put the brush away and headed back to their tent. She was going to sit in the car.

.

The owners invited them to have dinner, which Booth readily accepted, being kind of sick of cold tinned spaghetti. By the time he'd coaxed Brennan away from the car with the promise of baked vegetables and pasta, and stayed at the house until they could politely leave, it was eight pm. Brennan went for a shower and came back to find Booth stoking a blazing campfire. She took a seat on one of the logs.

'Kraus is dead,' she said after a while. Booth looked up at her, trying to read her expression in the firelight.

'Yeah, I know. I shot him.'

'What were you trying to find out from him?'

Booth caught her eye. This, right now, she was being more open and vulnerable with him than she'd been since the night they left. 'I wanted information to bring the others in… find out what happened to you.'

It was completely quiet except for the crackling fire and one of the horses grazing nearby. 'Did you?'

'Did I what?'

'Find out.'

'… No. I didn't.'

'Why did you kill him?'

'He was threatening you, Bones. Don't you remember?' He hesitated—what if he told her Kraus had held a pen to her jugular, and she genuinely didn't remember? He'd just have to answer her questions gently, try and gauge how much information she could handle.

'I remember seeing him on the ground… he grabbed me…'

'I'm sorry he's dead, Bones. You were in danger and to be honest, nothing else mattered.'

'You're sorry he's dead? But he… he did things…'

'I didn't mean … He deserves to be dead, I don't regret that. I just, I'm sorry I couldn't get all the information I wanted in time. For you. I wish I'd done better.'

Brennan shook her head. 'You never need to apologise for that. You've done so much…'

The pair sat quietly for a while, just letting their thoughts settle. Neither of them quite knew what to say. When had things become so complicated?

Booth was torn over whether to tell her McCullough had also had organised to have Kraus assassinated. Bones had never mentioned McCullough, and to be honest, if she had no conscious memories of him, Booth didn't want to bring it up. Maybe to heal, she'd have to know and work through things, but then again he was responsible for protecting her. What if he brought something up and Brennan got stuck there, not able to verbalise things or move forward? He'd already seen that happen to her. He wouldn't put her through that again.

'Agent Shaw said Broadsky is specifically looking for us, for both of us. Why… would Broadsky be after me?... Does he want me back?'

Booth let her question hang in the air like a snowflake dying above the flames, both fragile and strong. He stared at his feet and blew out a long breath, trying to think. The truth was he didn't even know.

'I don't think so Bones. I think… Look, he's after me— first he was angry I didn't agree to work with him, now he's angry I didn't stop looking for him. There's no way he's going to get you back, so don't think about it.'

'Why did he take me at all?'

Booth could say it was for leverage over him, to force his hand into joining forces with Broadsky. But was that really the reason? Just leverage? If Broadsky was after Max, could they have taken Bones in order to get to him? His gut told him that was unlikely. Perhaps Broadsky had just allowed the taking and torture of a hostage, to keep his psychopath associates happy. What if it had been nothing but happenstance? What if there was no reason at all?

'Bones, what he was thinking, it doesn't matter. Kraus, Broadsky— none of them matter. Okay? Those guys, they're nothing.'

'Don't you… want to know?'

Booth couldn't pretend to not know what she meant. A few days ago, this wasn't even an issue for them. He could leave her at the lab, and go out chasing suspects and leads. But she was much more involved now. Was it terrible for him to be looking for every opportunity to find out, and yet telling her she should move on without knowing?

'Bones… sometimes people, victims never get answers. And it's hard, not knowing why or even what happened but you can't let that hold you back. You can't live your life, waiting for some answer or memory to come along and fix everything. Because it won't.'

'You're saying that I have to be able to move on, regardless.'

'Yeah. I want that for you. Look, I don't want to see you fixate on knowing something that will magically sort everything out, because that doesn't always happen. I'm not saying, don't find out if you can, but don't… put your hope in that. You're strong enough to get through this, with or without it.'

Brennan looked at him sceptically, and finally decided he had a point. 'Yeah okay.'

'Let me worry about that stuff, you just focus on you.'

'And finding Max.'

'And that.'

No one spoke for a while. The fire crackled and while Brennan wanted to keep asking questions, she could feel that Booth was tense. Eventually she crawled into the tent and stuck the head of her sleeping bag through the front door flap so she didn't feel as closed in. The last thing she saw before falling asleep was Booth's silhouette against the campfire.


	71. Chapter 71

CH 71

Booth's phone rang a good half-an-hour before he was ready to be awake. A cold morning with Bones sleeping beside him, albeit her head and half her sleeping bag out of the tent, was something he should be allowed to take his time with. It didn't even occur to him that it was actually her phone, not his, until he answered. 'Booth.'

'Seeley? Where are you?—I mean, don't answer that, _how_ are you? And Brennan. Everything… are you okay?'

Booth sat up and tried to speak a bit softly. He could see Brennan stirring. 'We're fine, Cam. Still half asleep. I guess, you know we're not in a safehouse.'

'Well only as-of thismorning, I heard from Agent Shaw—Broadsky's been sighted.'

'What? Where?'

'The Hoover, thismorning at seven twenty. Caught on three security feeds, there's no doubt it was him.'

'Right. Okay. Any idea where he is now?'

'No, he was in and out fast. The Hoover security took two minutes to ID him on camera and by then he'd gone.'

'Did they get a license plate?'

'No, he was on foot. He was near a taxi rank, he was scouting out the area. Look Booth, this is off the books and it's just a hunch, and Genny agrees with me—but I think he suspects you're out there looking for him. I mean, if he's watching the Hoover you can bet he's been to your apartment and Brennan's. If you're not at home and not at work, then you're either in a safehouse, out of the country or trying to find him.'

'Well he was going to work it out sooner or later. Thanks Cam, for letting us know. You tell all the squints to keep safe, okay? I don't want anyone else getting dragged into this.'

'We'll be fine. You are somewhere safe, though, right? We all thought you were in protective custody Booth, Angela's beside herself.'

'We're fine,' Booth assured her, watching Brennan yawn and rub her eyes. 'Tell Angela Bones is safe with me.'

'I think she wants to kill you for taking Brennan away from us.'

'Trust me, it wasn't my first preference either,' he smiled, rubbing his hand along Brennan's back as she woke up. 'But we'll be okay.'

'Well I'll let you go—'

'Hang on, can you pass some information on to Shaw?'

'Yes.'

'She's probably already heard from L.A. but it was a bust, we were at risk of being recognised and we had to leave. I'd say Broadsky already knows—he'd be confirming that we're not in D.C.'

'Any leads work out?'

'No, the weapons developer was long gone. Tell her the two agents we lost… they were heroes and they didn't, they didn't suffer, they died instantly.'

'I'll tell her,' Cam promised. 'You two stay safe.'

'We will. Bye Cam.'

Brennan rolled over, feeling the loss of Booth's hand on her back and properly woke up. She looked like she was about to crawl over into his arms, but changed her mind at the last second.

'Hi,' she said, a contrary early-morning mix of cuddly and guarded.

'Hey. You know Bones, we should get moving today,' Booth decided.

'That was Cam?'

'Yeah. There was… Broadsky was sighted near the Hoover.'

'Oh. What does that mean?'

'That he's looking for us. His next stop will probably be L.A., so I want to keep moving.'

'Maybe we should go to Russ' place. I'm going to try calling Dad again.' She held out her hand for the phone.

'Okay, just be careful, this line should be safe but there's no guarantee—'

'It's fine, Booth.' She started dialling and Booth lay back, rummaging around for his jeans and t-shirt. Brennan dialled four different numbers, and when none of them answered she dejectedly put down the cell. 'I don't know why he's not answering. Do you really think he's okay?'

'We'll keep on looking til we find him.'

'What if he's already been taken? I mean, I remembered he was their target, but the time elapsed since I first overheard them, it could be as much as fourteen weeks. Fourteen _minutes_ is long enough to locate, capture and kill someone. How do I know they haven't already found him?'

'Bones, we'll find him, okay? We'll go to Russ' and get addresses for as many places he can think of your dad might have stayed at recently, anywhere he might go to avoid someone like Broadsky.'

Brennan's eyes widened. 'I know a place.'

'Where your father might be?'

'Yes, it's a mountain cabin. I remember it 'cos we used to go there when I was a child. He always said he'd like to go there and hide during winter, with the fireplace and the snow outside… I think if I was him, that's the first place I would go.'

She looked so hopeful about this idea Booth couldn't say no. 'You remember where to find it?'

'Of course I do, I have an eidetic memory. I rarely forget things even after a long time.'

'Great. Mountain cabin it is. Let's get going then.'

An hour later, everything was packed into the car and they were eating some breakfast (bread toasted on the coals of the fire—it was surprisingly good) as they drove out toward the reception. Booth ducked inside to thank the owners, almost forgetting he was Jim the hillbilly, and they were on their way. Brennan took a last look out the window at Skeleton Key, before the campgrounds disappeared, swallowed up into the wilderness.

.

She was eleven. She remembered telling her parents that she was eleven and that was almost a teenager. Plus if you added on the nine months before birth she was twelve-and-a-quarter. Apparently though, Russ was the only one allowed to drive in spite of his sister's intellect and trustworthiness. Her mother agreed that Tempe was more responsible than Russ at her age, but that didn't change the fact that she was too young to drive.

'Russ had to pass an exam, and I know I could pass it too—'

'That's not the point, honey,' Max told her. 'It's the law that you have to be a certain age to drive, they don't take individual aptitude into account. It's one rule for everyone.'

'You should like that, Tempe. You love rules, don't you? They're so boring and predictable—'

'The world needs laws to function. The laws of physics determine everything in the material world from rainbows to supernovas. There's nothing boring about that—'

'Enough, you two, or Mom's going to drive.' That shut the two kids up as they approached the base of the mountain.

'Is this the place you told us about?' Tempe asked. The mountain was a good half-hour's drive from the nearest town. The turnoff was an unmarked dirt road that only a few intrepid adventurers knew existed.

'Yeah it is. Used to be a clubhouse of the old freemasons, so it's got a stone fireplace and mahogany furniture. You kids will love it.'

'What's a freemason?' Tempe asked.

'Conspiracy theorists,' Russ and Christine answered at the same time, like it was an inside joke. Everyone except Tempe laughed. As much as she adored her mother, sometimes Tempe was more like her dad, and Russ was more like their mom. It often made her feel jealous to see their connection. Why didn't she connect to people like that?

'You bring any bugs to study, Temp?'

'Don't call me Temp, and no, I finished the arthropods textbook.'

'Already?'

'It took me three days. Did you know arthropods make up nearly three-quarters of all known living and fossilised animal species?'

'Of course I didn't know that, mainly because I don't care.'

'I want to do a higher grade of biology.'

'Don't whine, Tempe. Look, you're already doing Russ' level and the school won't agree to put you any higher. You'll just have to be content with me teaching you at home,' said Max.

Tempe sighed and looked out the window as they climbed the mountain, the car trundling slowly around hairpin bends in the road.

'Dad, wanna play soccer when we get there?' asked Russ.

'There's a bit of a field near the cabin but if the ball goes off the edge, that's the end of it. I heard a guy broke his leg up here a few months ago.'

'You always know the most interesting stories,' Tempe said quietly. 'It must be wonderful being a teacher, you make it look exciting…'

Christine and Max shared a glance and said nothing.

'Can I have some friends over next weekend when you're away?' Russ asked after a minute.

'We didn't say we were going away,' said Max.

'You go out every weekend, Friday night and Saturday. Please?'

'Russ wants to have a party,' Tempe said.

'Tempe! Shut up. No I don't, I didn't say that.'

'You can have up to five friends over, all under 18 and absolutely no alcohol. And everyone leaves at eleven, and you keep an eye on your sister.'

'I can take care of myself.'

'Not from ten of Russ' drunk classmates she can't,' breathed Christine so only Max could hear.

'We'll discuss it later. I don't want Tempe at a teenage party without me or Mom around, she's too young,' Max said.

'But—' Tempe started.

'Okay, no party,' Russ compromised. /She can have some friends over too then, we'll play board games or something.'

'I don't need to invite anyone, I'd rather be reading anyway.'

'You don't want to invite anyone, or you don't have anyone to invite?'

'Russ,' said Max warningly.

'She gets a training bra and suddenly thinks she's all grown up—'

'Russ, that's enough,' said Christine. 'This is going to be a nice family weekend, okay? Let's just enjoy it. You kids may not realise it but there's nothing in the world like family, even your siblings. So let's just appreciate each other for a few days, okay?' Russ rolled his eyes and Tempe sat up primly and turned to the window. 'Kids?'

'Yes Mom.'

'Yeah.'

.

'Bones?'

'Huh?'

'I've said your name four times, you feeling oaky?'

'Oh. Sorry. I must have been…'

'Don't worry about it. Is this the place?'

The mountain didn't look exactly like she remembered it, but accounting for twenty years of plant growth and maintenance, it was definitely the same place. 'This is it. I don't know exactly who owns it…'

'I'm sure it belongs, or belonged to one of Max's crime buddies.'

Bones involuntarily flinched. She'd just been thinking of the first time she came here, and after picturing her parents the way she remembered them, it felt strangely upsetting to remember they'd been living secret lives of crime. She closed her eyes and just wished she could have that innocence, or ignorance again, and just be able to trust that they were who they said they were—just her mum and dad. And brother. No disappearances, no murders, no parole officers. No hits.

'I had a holiday house when I was a kid,' Booth offered. Brennan glanced at him furtively. Was it that obvious something was bothering her?

'I'm okay, it's no big deal,' she said, not even sure what she was referring to.

'It was near the beach,' Booth went on ignoring her. 'We used to go in the middle of summer. Dad always said people's hair grows faster in the summer, so we were leaving at the height of his business, but he only complained for the first day. The rest of the week, we'd go surfing and swimming and digging massive holes at the beach.'

Brennan wasn't exactly sure why he was telling her this story, but she found that just listening to him made her feel calm. She smiled and murmured, 'Thanks'. Booth went automatically to take her hand, only catching and stopping himself at the last moment. He hoped she hadn't noticed. But she did. She felt her eyes fill—ridiculously—and looked resolutely out the window as they climbed the steep road to the cabin.

.

'Here you go Bones. Cabin-sweet-cabin,' Booth said twenty minutes later, as the two of them climbed out of the car and stretched in the brisk mountain air.

'It looks empty,' she replied, taking in the closed doors and windows, unmown grass and lack of tyre marks on the ground. 'There must be information on how to contact the owner. You think it will be okay for us to just turn up and stay here?'

'Uh… let's just check the place out first,' Booth said. 'If there's a phone number we'll ring the owners, but I wanna snoop around here first before we go make ourselves known.'

'Oh. Because we're trying to keep a low profile?'

'And because Broadsky is paranoid, which means we have to be paranoid too.'

Bones shrugged in acceptance. 'How are we going to get inside, we don't have a key. Are we going to break in?'

'Hang on.'

Booth tried the front door. 'I don't think there's an alarm but it's deadbolted.' He tried the windows on the far side of the house and managed to slide one open. 'Bones. Over here.'

Brennan ran around the side of the house to join him. 'Do you want me to go in? I'm smaller, I could fit through the window.'

As a general rule at the moment Booth was against her doing anything first or being out if his sight in any way, but he was just about sure the house was empty. 'I'll give you a boost. Put your legs in first.'

'I know how to climb through a window.'

Booth didn't ask how but lifted her under the arms so she could slide her legs inside and jump down onto the floor. 'Anything in there? Or anyone?'

'No, it's empty. I'll let you in, hang on.' She opened the deadbolt and Booth came inside. It had a stone fireplace and polished wood panels on most of the walls. Aside from a lack of maintenance, it was beautiful.

'You must have loved coming here as a kid. I bet you could climb some of the trees outside, too.'

'I climbed them, Russ said he was too grown-up. There should be two rooms and three beds—everything's still here.'

Booth found the kitchen and opened the top drawer. There was a folder welcoming guests to the house and a phone number and address of the owners.

'Hey Bones, come use your eidetic memory on this,' he called. She came out of the bedroom and took the folder he was holding out.

'Oh okay. I've got it.'

'Great. I think we should go and book with them. This is a nice place, anyone squatting here would have law-enforcement coming if anyone found out. We'd bring more attention to ourselves if we _didn't_ book.'

'Okay. Would you have squatted if it was _not_ a nice place?' Bones asked as they locked up and went to the car.

'Yeah, I would have. Now which way are we going?'

Bones got the map and directed them. Half an hour later they were pulling into a small town, and found a tourist information place which handled accommodation in the area.

'Jim and Sheila… Mourey,' Booth said, thinking on his feet. 'We heard about the place through a guy named Max—about so tall, charming, in his sixties. Uh, any chance you might have seen him in here?'

'I'm not really meant to discuss details of other guests, sorry.'

'Oh. Just… I've been meaning to catch up with him,' Booth said. 'He hasn't been seen in a while. He uh, owes me some money.'

Brennan glanced at him, then at the man processing their booking. 'We're actually a bit worried about him. Think he might have got himself into trouble,' she said smoothly.

'Alright, I'll have a look, just keep this quiet… Max, Max.' The man flipped through an old-fashioned file. 'I think I know the guy you mean… Max… Sorry, I've only got a… Seeley Jefferson. About the only single white older guy who's come here in the last year. It's mostly couples and young families who stay at the cabin. Sorry.'

Booth shrugged, sharing a significant glance with Brennan, and paid for a week's stay. It'd nearly clean them out of the cash Brennan had withdrawn, but they knew they'd come to the right place.

'So ah, Seeley… We might have got the name mixed up… When was he last here?' Brennan asked as they were leaving.

The man looked at them strangely. 'The guy sounds like he's trouble, you must really want that money. He was here about two weeks ago.'

Booth slipped an arm around Brennan's back and steered her outside. 'Bones, you can't press the issue like that without arousing suspicion!' he said quietly as they went back to the car.

'Well how else were we going to find out, break in and steal the file?'

'I could tell it was recent because he read the name from one of the last pages in the file.'

'Oh. But at least we know, right? Two weeks ago, that's very recent. We're on his heel.'

'I don't know we're quite on his _tail_, but you're right it's good we came here.'

'Do you think we can find out where he went next?'

'Maybe Bones. But the best chance we have of finding him is probably word of mouth—the fact that we're looking for him, getting back to him.'

Brennan frowned as they climbed into the hatchback. 'Word of mouth. But that's the same way you said Broadsky would be able to find us. How can we make word get to my father, but not to Broadsky?'

As cocksure as Brennan could be about danger, she finally seemed to be getting Booth's warnings. He clipped his seatbelt in, something he rarely did. 'Now you see why we have to be so careful, Sheila.'


	72. Chapter 72

They stopped at a corner store on the way back and grabbed enough food to last them a few days, though now they were down to a couple of twenty dollar bills. It was late afternoon when they arrived back at the cabin. Booth parked it outside and they let themselves in, legally this time.

'Are you going to let me drive next time?' Bones asked. They were hauling their bags out the back of the car.

'How about you just focus on getting settled right here,' Booth said as they walked into the house. 'Look at this—we've got a fireplace, beautiful soft couches and rugs, and beds, and a shower that isn't filled with insects. You gotta live in the now, Bones. Just enjoy this.'

'I am enjoying it,' she said, dumping her duffel bag on the floor. 'But I'm going to keep asking.'

'I'd expect nothing less,' Booth said with a grin. Brennan suddenly very much wanted him in the same room as her for tonight, the way they'd shared the tent. The thought of being alone in a strange room was almost frightening. Things at Booth's apartment had been so wonderful, and the thought of moving on and no longer being with him was enough to send her heartrate soaring with anxiety. _Stupid, it's so stupid_, she berated. 'Uh, I'm going to have a shower,' she said out out loud, grabbing some clothes.

'Don't you want to have some late lunch?' Booth asked. 'I know I'm starving…' She shook her head and disappeared into the hallway.

The bathroom had a scratched and rustic wooden floor, and a skylight. It was clean and relaxing and Brennan let out a sigh of happiness at being able to get really clean for the first time in days. _We'll have to find a laundromat_, she mentally noted. Their clothes were dank and musty from sitting in travel bags in the car, even though they weren't actually dirty. It would be nice to have something that smelled clean and fresh.

Not that she really minded. As a grad student she'd trekked through some wild and remote places, where pit toilets, mosquito nets and even water skins had been standard. Maybe she was just too used to cleanliness and luxury from her nice apartment in D.C. Though that wasn't the most recent time she'd been living in filth.

.

_There was water dripping onto the earthen floor. She could barely see it from under her bruised eyelids, but she could smell the moss growing on the ground and walls. It didn't smell like the moss in a rainforest. It smelled like the moss was sick somehow. Then she realised there were a lot of other things in the dark little room besides just moss._

_She had no idea how long she'd been here for, kneeling and hung by the wrists off a hook in the ceiling. Time seemed to have stopped moving. It might have been years since she was last at home or at the lab, or in the car with Booth. A memory of his face as he talked and smiled suddenly overwhelmed her. She wanted him here so badly, but at the same time felt too ashamed to be seen by anyone- him most of all. She wasn't sure, but she didn't think she was wearing anything, although a rough blanket had been draped over her shoulders to help prevent hypothermia. It wasn't working all that well, since she couldn't move and raise her body temperature through exercise. She was shivering, and though the metal cuffs around her wrists and ankles had warmed up to her body temperature, each shiver caused them to infinitesimally press and rub the various cuts and bruises from where she'd previously been tied with rope. They were rusty and she was probably getting infections._

_Even though her face felt swollen and sore, fat tears leaked out and dripped off her chin onto the ground. She wondered if more moss would grow there. She was vaguely aware of the stench of urine, though by now she was used to the smell. She could definitely feel stinging where it had dripped all over cuts on her legs and feet. _

_There were quiet sounds of scuffling around her, and she was thankful she couldn't see what were probably spiders and rats. A loud noise came from the floor above. She tilted her head up and tried to see. Bright light streamed into the pit, blinding, since her pupils were enlarged to cope with the dark. A heavy concrete slab slammed down above her, making dust and bits of rock fall from the ceiling._

_Her heart rate increased and she felt like throwing up, in spite of her stomach being completely empty. It felt like all the blood was draining out of her head—her pulse thumped and she thought she might pass out. Suddenly a man was right in front of her, shining a torch in her face. 'Get up,' he ordered roughly. He lifted her cuffed wrists up and over the hook, causing shooting pain to her raw-rubbed wrists, and letting her crumple to the ground. He shone the light away from her face, and she looked up, trying to see who was standing there. She gasped for breath and recoiled at who she saw. It was Booth._

.

'Bones? Bones, you still in there?'

Brennan squeezed her eyes shut and opened them. She still felt blinded, but found it was by the cold water of the shower, not a bright light. Where was she? _The cabin_, she told herself. _I was having a shower_.

Booth was still knocking on the door. 'Bones, tell me you're alright or I'm going to come in, I heard a crash—'

She lurched at the thought of him coming in. She didn't want… 'I'm fine,' she called, her voice shaky but it would have to do. If he needed more convincing, she could sound angry and scare him off.

'Are you sure? Don't be long, okay?'

'Fine,' she said weakly, turning off the taps. She found she was shivering. How long had the shower been cold? She pushed the door open and crawled out, kneeling on the bathmat and tugging her towel off the rack. She stared at the marks on her arms. _Booth used to put oil on them…_ Out of nowhere she felt like she was going to be sick. The toilet was in the same room, so she crawled over and crouched in front of it, trying to breathe slowly and deeply. If she did she might be able to keep her breakfast in her stomach…

Booth was concerned—she'd been in there for over an hour. Having lived with her for nearly two months, he knew that lengthy showers weren't typical for her. At least, not since she'd been back. Either way, his gut was telling him that something was wrong.

He was making pasta for dinner, since they had access to a stove. He wished there was a tv, but it seemed like more of a romantic getaway, or a teach-the-kids-to-rough-it-in-beautiful-wilderness type of place. He could imagine a pre-teen Bones running around catching bugs and plants to study, or teenage Russ skulking around moodily. Had Max really been here just two weeks ago?

The bathroom door creaked open and Brennan came out, and went straight into the bedroom with the double bed. Booth followed her inside. 'You feeling okay?'

'Yeah. I just… I need some sleep.'

'Sure, okay. You want some pasta?'

Her face visibly blanched. 'No, I don't, I don't feel like eating.'

_Well this is more familiar_, Booth thought. 'Water?'

Brennan looked at him with an inscrutable expression. 'Um, yeah, that would be great. Thanks.' She slid into the bed and turned to face the opposite wall.

This left Booth with the two single beds in the other room. He'd kind of been hoping to share it with her. Why was she suddenly acting detached like this? Had he done something wrong?

He filled the glass, shaking his head. Women. In general, Bones was far easier to read and deal with than other females he knew. Her main faults were a lack of self-awareness and a low emotional intelligence, as she tried to ignore her feelings and protect herself. But she was always honest and genuine, even blunt in her matter-of-fact way with the truth. And to him anyway, she was easy to read. He took the glass in to her and left it on the stand. He paused on the way out, debating whether to tell her feel better. She pulled the blanket over her head, so he took it as a sign and just left.

As soon as he was gone, she grabbed the water and drank almost half of it. She needed the water to replace all the tears she'd lost. Ten minutes later she managed to fall asleep, the glass empty and her pillow soaked.


	73. Chapter 73

CH 73

_She was trapped. It was completely dark, and she was wrapped in something that felt like plastic. And the ground was moving. Her heart stopped— she knew what was happening. She'd seen similar stories told in remains many times at work. She was in a truck, going to be thrown into a river or the sea, or an empty grave, helplessly gagged and tied, and left to suffocate or drown. _

_She thrashed, or tried to—all she managed to do was tighten the plastic around her middle. It was completely pointless to do so, but she was beyond being rational. She gasped for oxygen. All of a sudden she couldn't breathe, even though her airway was unobstructed. The air felt thick and hot, like it was mucus in her throat. Her mouth was dry and she couldn't swallow._

_Her head began to spin and she thought she would pass out. She wanted to. She just didn't want to be awake for any of this, for whatever was going to happen._

_She heard muffled voices from the front seat. The van stopped, and heavy metal doors clanged open behind her. Two men hauled her out. It was night time, so she could see a little better than she'd expected. The man carrying her shoulders said something in Russian that she couldn't understand, then looked down at her, smiling. No…_

.

Brennan woke up screaming. Booth burst into the room and turned the light on. 'Bones?'

_What hap…_ 'I… I…' She couldn't form words for some reason, but sat there feeling increasingly foolish in front of Booth. A face which was somehow terrifying, because it was his face she'd just seen in her memory… flashback… dream?

'Bones, what happened? What's wrong?'

'N… nothing,' she said, looking away.

Booth looked at her compassionately and came to sit on the side of the bed across from her. 'Bones, I know it's hard that this is still happening, but it's—'

'No!' she exclaimed. She was still breathing hard after what she'd seen, but now he was moving closer. She kicked the sheets off and stumbled out of bed towards the window. She was still trapped—Booth was between her and the door.

_It's only Booth_, she told herself, trying to cling to what she knew was rational, and real. But there was no talking reason to her adrenal glands. She felt her pulse throbbing in her head. Booth stood up.

'Stay back,' she heard herself say. It barely sounded like her voice. She sounded scared. She fumbled with the catch on the window. Booth was taking a step towards her. 'Bones…'

She couldn't do this. She had to get _out_. Forcing herself to breathe, she barrelled past him into the hallway and ran through the kitchen and outside. She was trapped when she was in the house. She could be backed into a corner, locked in a closet, tied up and left in a bathroom…

She didn't know if any of those things had actually happened to her, but now everything her eyes fell upon felt like a threat. The trees were thick and anyone could be lurking there—Broadsky, Booth, Kraus… _McCullough_.

The force of the memory of her third tormentor made her stumble and double over. She could see his face, his small pale eyes, piercing into her, his smile…

She tripped over a tree root and nearly slid down the slope. She remembered what her dad had told her about some accident years ago up here. The ground literally just fell away, when you expected it to continue flat. She clung to a tree and closed her eyes, trying to breathe through it and calm down. _It's only Booth_, she told herself over and over. _Booth. I __know__ Booth. He wasn't there_.

'Bones!'

She looked behind and saw him on the grass in front of the cabin, looking around everywhere for her. She closed her eyes and held tighter to the tree. She wanted him to come get her, but at the same time… He disappeared behind the house. A wave of guilt washed over her. Why didn't she call out? He was up in the middle of the night, chasing after her in completely the wrong direction. She was being so selfish. Booth hadn't done anything wrong…

'Booth?' she said, her voice so small that even she could barely hear it. _Get up_, she told herself. _This isn't rational, this doesn't make any sense…_ She grabbed the tree and pulled herself up. 'Booth?'

It was a quiet night, and even small sounds carried a long way. She heard something on the other side of the house—it sounded like there was an animal thrashing in the trees, or maybe a tree falling down the hill. Suddenly it was quiet. _Booth_. Brennan extricated herself from the thicket of plants and got up to the lawn, then ran around the house to where the sound had come from.

'Booth?' There was nothing there. Where was he? He'd been here just seconds ago. 'Booth? Booth!' she yelled, her voice still shaking.

No one replied. After a few moments she felt her face grow hot and her eyes sting. He had just _been_ here. Where was he? She looked around. 'Booth!' she called again. What if something had happened to him?

Standing in the cold wind, everything suddenly felt very dark and empty. It was a different fear to what she'd felt running outside—the fear of being found. Now she was terrified of being alone. It felt like wherever Booth was, that was the right place to be, and even if he'd been the one to go, she was the one who was lost.

She stamped her foot, trying to convert the waves of fear and loss into something physical. Her eyes grew hot and she looked up at the sky to stop them spilling. Then she heard a sound. Someone moaning. _Booth_. She somehow knew it was him.

She stumbled towards the noise. 'Booth?' This time she heard it clearer. She picked her way carefully between the trees. A few more steps and she heard him moan again. 'Booth, are you okay?'

'Hah,' she heard. It sounded like he was in pain.

'Where are you? Oh—' She slid about a foot on some loose fallen leaves. The ground wasn't very stable.

'Bones,' he said from further down the slope. 'Be careful, don't slip.'

'Oh. Right,' she said, grabbing onto trees with each step. 'This is not a very safe place to walk.'

Booth gave a sort of chuckle. 'I know,_ ahh_. I think… I did something to my leg.'

'Did you break it? Let me look at it before you move,' Brennan said, feeling on somewhat safer ground, emotionally speaking.

'No, I don't think it's broken. You be careful, I don't want you falling too, you're not as fit as you usually are—'

'I'll be fine, Booth,' she said, carefully stepping towards the place he'd slid down.

'Hold onto a tree or something.'

'I am.'

'Okay, I'm just worried about you—'

'But you're the one who's hurt, Booth.'

'I'll be fine, I just need to get some ice on this. Careful not to slide—'

Brennan did slide a couple of feet, but didn't go as far as Booth had. She grabbed onto another tree and made her way over. 'Are you okay?' she asked, kneeling down beside him.

'Yeah, I'm fine. You?' She nodded, not meeting his eyes. He decided not to press the issue right now—she was doing a great job of putting whatever had happened to one side, to deal with this situation of him being injured. He'd find another time to talk about her nightmare, and her running out of the house like he was an axe-murderer.

'Where does it hurt?' she asked, sliding her hands over his ankle and lower leg, checking for signs the bone was broken.

'Uh, just all around here.' He pointed to his whole ankle.

'Well,' she said, still looking at the injury site, 'you're right, you didn't break anything. You've just got a sprain.'

'Uh. Yeah, too right I do.'

'How are we going to get back up?' she asked, inspecting the trail of debris they'd made.

'Same way we came down, but slower and holding onto trees.'

'Can you walk?'

Booth got his good leg underneath him and pushed himself up. He tried putting pressure on it and winced. 'It's fine. Come on, you go first.'

'It doesn't look fine, it looks like you're in a lot of pain,' Brennan said, a touch of distress in her voice.

'Okay, well you just let me worry about that, you worry about yourself. Come on, up you go.'

He ushered her and she started to climb, very careful not to send cascades of leaves or dirt down on top of him. 'You should have gone first,' she said, feeling even more guilty. All of this happening was her fault. If she'd just thought things through, been _reasonable_…

'I'm happier keeping an eye on you. Careful of that spot up ahead, that's where I slipped.'

It took a good ten minutes, Brennan testing every foothold and pointing it out to him. It was help he didn't really need but it seemed to keep Bones occupied and emotionally stable, and that was good enough. Finally they were out of the scrub and on the lawn. Booth staggered without the trees to grab with his arms and Brennan rushed to let him lean on her. 'Thanks, Bones,' he said lightly, as if she'd just handed him a coffee cup or a case file. Bones found herself cuddling into his side as they walked. How could she have been afraid of him? It was ridiculous, utterly stupid. Booth had searched for her the whole time she was missing. He wasn't one of her captors. He was never there. Why did these dreams keep plaguing her?

The door was still open so she helped him inside and they collapsed onto the couch. Both of them felt suddenly exhausted, the crash after the adrenaline rush. Booth leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

'We need to ice your ankle,' Brennan said, making herself get up. She wasn't going to give in to tiredness and fall asleep now, not after what had just happened. She needed to take care of him. She went into the kitchen and found a tray of ice in the freezer. She found a plastic bag and a tea towel and made an ice-pack, then took it over to the couch.

His ankle was beginning to look swollen and bruised, especially after the walk back to the house. Quite a bit of Booth was covered in dirt from sliding down the embankment. She grabbed a chair and a cushion, elevated his leg and applied the ice pack. Booth grimaced and breathed out audibly. 'Did you bring a first aid kit or anything?' Brennan asked.

'In the big suitcase. I could go a painkiller.'

Brennan went straight out to the car. She fought the urge to cry—she just felt so bad. All Booth had done was be wonderful and try to help her. And this was how she treated him. She couldn't help tears spilling down her cheeks. She found the first aid kit and brought the whole lot inside along with a big stick near the wood pile, going straight to the kitchen to get him a water.

She was glad most of the lights were off. She didn't want him worrying about her, he just needed to rest. She dampened a washcloth and brought it over with two tablets and the water. 'Thanks,' Booth said, taking the pills from her open hand. She turned away and immediately started cleaning the dirt off the injury site. 'Bones, what's wrong?'

That really did it. She covered her face with one hand to muffle a sob. 'Bones…'

She couldn't get any words out, so she just leaned back into the edge of the sofa, and lolled her head onto the side of his good leg. It felt good to finally give in and cry, even though she refused to look up. Booth seemed to understand that and she let him run his fingers through her hair, then lay his hand on the back of her neck. She was thankful he wasn't asking questions. He always seemed to know what to do or say, she realised. She'd never really noticed before, but he genuinely _got_ her. What she needed and how to approach her, he somehow just knew.

Even though half an hour ago she'd wanted to run into the night, now the idea of doing that, of just leaving? It felt awful. She could have properly gotten lost alone out there, cut off from him, the only person she was in contact with. Looking at it rationally, Booth could have got sick of her mood swings and left. But instead, he'd more than proven he wouldn't do that. What kind of company was she being to him right now, out here, where he'd agreed to come with her to help her and to rescue Max?

'Bones.'

She sniffed and lifted her head up from his leg, but didn't turn around since she was blotchy from tears.

'You need to get some rest, you think you can go back to sleep?'

She didn't know. She just couldn't postulate that scenario, simple as it was, of whether it would be distressing to go back to the room she'd claimed. She didn't want to admit it, but she was aching to take the other single bed in Booth's room. But she felt her pride couldn't take that right now. And as much as she needed Booth, she wanted privacy as well with all these stupid emotions. She just wanted to forget about tonight, all the distress and crying, the bad memories, or hallucinations, or whatever they were. She wanted dreamless sleep.

'I don't know,' she said quietly.

Booth leaned forward and rubbed her back for a moment. She immediately felt guilty—he was doting on her, but he was the one who was injured. 'I'll go back to bed,' she said, sounding more certain than she felt.

'Are you sure?' The concern was evident in his voice, even though she couldn't see his face.

'Yes.' Brennan hauled herself to her feet. 'What about you? Can you get back into bed?'

'I'll be fine. I'll keep icing it. You can check on it in the morning if you want, you just go and get some sleep.'

She swiped her face with her sleeve. 'Do you need help?'

Booth shook his head. 'You go on, you've had a big night.'

It was almost awkward, her standing in front of him, wanting both to stay and leave, to help and to run-and-hide. She was bewildered by the contradictions. It was bad enough to experience a single strong feeling, let alone opposite impulses at once. Booth looked calm and sure about this. He was the only compass she had to navigate through this mess of confusing emotions, and in the end she decided to just follow his lead. She trusted him, especially when she didn't know what to think.

She caught his eye by mistake, and immediately looked away. 'Goodnight.'

'Night Bones. You'll be okay. Come get me if you need anything.'

At this she was on the verge of tears yet again so she just hurried into her room and shut the door. Slumping against it, she sniffed hard and crawled back into bed, trying not to think about Booth going through the difficult process of getting to his room. She'd be no use if she went back to try and help him— she was so emotionally fragile she'd only end up crying in front of him and invariably keeping both of them up. She couldn't remember ever feeling so confused and conflicted. Burrowing back into the sheets, all she could think was, before she slipped into oblivion— _What the hell is wrong with me?_


	74. Chapter 74

CH 74

Booth had made his way out to the couch again after a somewhat broken sleep. His ankle was dully throbbing, and he'd just taken another painkiller. He'd really twisted his leg around when he fell last night.

He was kind of hungry— he couldn't walk to the kitchen without significant discomfort. It was almost nine o'clock and Bones had yet to surface from her room. And it looked like he would be needing her help for the next few days.

Booth looked over at her door. Still shut, not a peep from inside. _What is going on with her?_ he wondered. Ever since leaving his apartment that night, things had been strained. Though that was to be expected, really. Bones wasn't the clingy, cuddly type, and the experience of _being_ those things and needing someone to latch onto… There was bound to be a point where she would overcompensate in the other direction. But she was obviously having flashbacks, or nightmares, and she wouldn't let him in. How was she supposed to get better if she's battling all her demons by herself? Especially when she was outright refusing to talk about it. _Cos when Bones and I ignore an elephant in the room, __that__ always goes really well_ he thought.

It was hard to get a reading on Bones when she clammed up, but Booth reckoned there were real reasons she was acting this way. It felt personal, when someone hid from and rejected you, but he knew Bones, and he knew she'd never hurt him like that on purpose. Last night had been proof of that. He'd seen her fight tears and tenderly wash his foot to get the dirt off— with, he noticed, a far more gentle touch than she would normally examine someone with. He knew she felt terrible about what she sometimes did. In the back of his mind he'd known that Bones didn't wake up one day, and suddenly no longer like him. She was clearly torn between two opposing instincts and two courses of action—staying or running, opening up or shutting down. Booth wondered if Bones herself even knew what was going on.

It was almost ten by the time Brennan's door creaked open. Booth could sense tension still radiating off her. She couldn't have slept well. She disappeared into the bathroom for twenty minutes, and finally came out to the living room.

'Hi,' she said almost nervously. _Does she really feel she has to be nervous around me?_ He thought. _This is ridiculous. I'm gonna have to sort this out_.

'Hey Bones,' he said lightly. She wasn't showing any discernible emotion on her face, but knowing her like he did, he knew she was carefully schooling her mouth and eyes to stay as neutral as possible. Her whole demeanour screamed 'caution' and 'flight-risk'. 'So, do you think you could uh, grab me some breakfast?' he asked lightly. Eating together would give her an activity to hide behind. He didn't want to startle her into running away again.

'Oh, yeah, of course. How… how is your leg?' she said. Her eyes flashed with empathy, before she crossed her arms in front of her and took a step back.

'It's alright. I might just need a few days off of it. Too bad we don't have any crutches, I'm not gonna be much use.'

Bones nodded and bit her lip. She was swinging back and forth between emotional and reticent. Booth though she might burst into tears at any second.

'What do you want to eat?'

'Maybe just toast? And juice. I'm dying for fresh orange juice.'

Bones nodded and hurried off to get them for him. She stayed in the kitchen a lot longer than it would take to make toast, but Booth didn't let on that he'd noticed. Finally she brought his food in. 'Thanks, Bones,' he smiled taking the plate and glass from her. She went back to the kitchen to get hers, and when she didn't return Booth looked around and waved her over. 'You wanna come eat over here with me?'

She hesitated but seemed to decide refusing would be strange. She came over slowly and perched on the other end of the sofa.

'So how are you thismorning?' Booth asked as soon as he'd swallowed his orange juice.

'I'm fine thanks.'

'Sleep okay?'

'Yeah.'

'Bones.' She looked up at him, slightly unnerved. 'You can talk to me, you know. I'm not going to force you, but I'm here for you. If you need anything.'

Brennan nodded and turned her full attention back to her half-eaten toast, like if she stared at it hard enough she'd find the meaning of life or the evolutionary origins of man . She suddenly got a memory of Angela hugging her goodbye a long time ago at the airport. '_I hope you find something that… totally changes what it means to be human,_' Ange had said. Brennan remembered looking into Booth's eyes and fighting everything within her, telling her to walk into his arms and kiss him. She glanced at Booth out of the corned of her eye. She could do this. She'd done it before. They didn't have to deal with everything, they could leave things unsaid. More than anything, she just wanted for her and Booth to be _them_. The safety of unwavering friendship, not the risk of… spilling secrets and saying too much and hurting each other. What would Booth think of her if she told him what she'd remembered? Would he be angry? After everything he'd done for her…

Angela had told her how he'd searched for weeks on end, day and night, following even the most unlikely leads, never giving up. He'd gone all over the country, pursuing three of the most dangerous people they'd ever encountered in their years with the FBI. Then he'd found her, carried her to safety and taken care of her ever since. Apart from answering her direct questions on certain points, he'd done it all quietly, never once seeking her acknowledgement and thanks.

There was no way she could tell him what she was seeing now when she went to sleep or something triggered a memory. It was ludicrous, and Brennan was all about facts—undisputed, verifiable evidence. If she told him what she'd seen, that he'd in any way hurt her, it would sound nearly as bad as accusing him. There was no reason to put any stock in hallucinations and dreams. The faces she saw were a conglomeration of numerous people, anyway. Broadsky, Kraus, McCullough…

She hadn't told Booth about the third man she remembered.

'Bones?'

She looked up from her toast. 'Oh. Sorry. What did you say?'

Booth looked at her concernedly. 'Bones, I was saying your name over and over, didn't you hear me?'

Brennan felt startled. She hadn't heard him talking? But she was past all that now, all the zoning out and panicking and catatonia. She'd read the doctor's notes at one of her weekly check-ups. 'I… I'm sorry. I'm listening now,' she said, trying to sound calm. Booth wasn't fooled.

'Do you think you could rig up a brace or something for my ankle? Probably heal up faster.'

'Oh. Yeah, of course. I'll go get the first aid kit.'

'Bones…' Booth started, but she was already off, and seemed not to have heard him.

He sighed quietly in frustration. He couldn't get frustrated with her. The way she was now, any sign of annoyance on his part could send her into crisis mode. She was getting worse by the day.

By the time she got back, Booth had calmed himself down. She was going to pick up on his mood faster than anything else. He let her kneel down beside him and start bandaging his leg for the splint.

She worked quietly and carefully, the same way she did everything. After a minute or two she visibly relaxed. Booth could see her mouth moving silently, like she was reciting the names of the bones and muscles and ligaments as she wrapped. She worked slowly and precisely. Booth guessed she wanted to draw this job out, either out of a desire to focus on something practical and intellectual, or for an excuse to be close to him without it being strange. He saw how often she changed her mind about being near him. It was an internal battle played out as plainly as a soccer match. She probably thought he didn't notice.

'There you go,' she said quietly, attaching the elastic butterfly clasp to hold it in place. 'Just try to keep off it and keep using the ice for a few days. I'll keep checking on it.'

'Great, thanks,' he said, smiling genially. She gave a rather weak excuse for a smile and Booth knew it was time to bring out the big guns or they were going to drive each other passive-aggressively insane. 'Hey, I found a cupboard in my bedroom full of books,' he commented, and Brennan perked up with interest. 'Yeah, there were some old encyclopaedias, some classic novels, and I think there was a textbook about invertables or something.'

'Invertebrates,' Brennan said softly.

'Yeah, that's the one. How did you know that?'

Brennan sort of shrugged and made a beeline for Booth's room. There was a little wooden panel between the closet and the mirror that opened up, if you noticed it was there. It had been years since she'd knelt here in this little room, one she'd shared with Russ when they were kids. She slid open the cupboard— she couldn't believe these books were still here. There were two encyclopaedias about science and the natural world, both volumes dog-eared and well loved, and tucked at the back, as Booth had said, was her college-level biology textbook on invertebrates. Staying right where she was, she leant back against the wall, resting the book on her knees, and started to read.


	75. Chapter 75

CH 75

After six days, Booth's ankle was finally beginning to be functional again. He'd got Bones to find him a big stick out near the pile of firewood to use as a makeshift crutch. Bones kept nervously reminding him not to over-do it, and he was patiently following her advice to the letter, mainly because he could see she was terrified of anything happening to him. He didn't want her to feel he wasn't taking her seriously, or for her to second-guess whether he wanted her around at all.

Things hadn't improved between them, but they hadn't deteriorated either. Brennan had taken to lying on the second bed in Booth's room for much of the day, reading and re-reading her books like long-lost treasures. Booth was reading them too, and he smiled when he saw her name printed inside the covers—T. Brennan, just like her lab coat. One of them said 'Tempe', and he thought that book was probably the oldest. He guessed it was from when she was eight or ten.

They kept largely out of each other's way, except for eating together, since it would be weird not to do that. Brennan had started going for long walks around the mountain, after being coerced into all sorts of promises that she wouldn't go too far, or be away more than half an hour, or do anything remotely dangerous, and watch where she put her feet like a hawk. 'Because if you fall, it would take me a while to come and save you,' Booth reminded her, every time she left the cabin.

She'd been very cooperative so far, even when Booth had asked for detailed descriptions of where she'd been, just so he knew where to find her next time if anything went wrong. He couldn't really force her to stay in the cabin just because he had an injured leg. He was going stir crazy himself just reading books and elevating his leg all day.

He was working on his upper body strength since he couldn't really walk. Brennan had come back a few times to see him doing push-ups and muttering numbers as he went.

Another of the downsides to Booth being injured was that they were severely short of food. Booth was against her leaving the cabin without him, let alone wandering into a strange town by herself with no way to contact him. But he couldn't keep her tethered forever, and they did need more food. He knew it was actually a good thing for her to want to do things on her own and be independent. She was quite excited by the fact that as long as Booth's foot was out of action, she would get to drive. So on Saturday evening, she was impatiently holding the keys and her bag while Booth told her yet again to be ridiculously careful.

'I won't talk to strangers or use my real name,' she said impishly. 'I'm a grown woman Booth, I know how to take care of myself. It's only grocery shopping.'

'And getting the bank to give you a wad of cash with no I.D. You just keep that wig on, okay, don't stay longer than absolutely necessary—'

'I _know_ Booth. I'll be fine. I'll see you in a couple of hours.'

'Okay…bye…' he said helplessly. She swanned out the door and Booth heard the ignition start and the car drive away.

Brennan sighed happily at the feeling of driving. It was so freeing. She couldn't remember the last time she'd driven. It must have been on the night she was first taken, nearly four months ago.

She pushed that thought from her head. She wasn't going to ruin this with bad memories. She wound down the window, even though it was freezing. She felt the urge to put on the radio, even though she never did that and wouldn't know any of the songs to sing along to. Before long she was down the mountain onto flat road, and cruising along to town with the music so loud it didn't matter if she knew the words or not.

After half an hour she was driving into the town centre. She turned the radio off and drove through the streets looking for a bank. She spotted the tourist information building. _Would it matter that Booth said our names were Sheila and Jim?_ she wondered. _Of course not. The cashier would be a different person than the man from the information stand. Plus, this area is full of scenic attractions. There must be hundreds of visitors every month._

At the other end of the main drag was a branch of Brennan's bank. She pulled up, straightened her long wig and went inside. The teller was a bit less cooperative than the last branch she'd gone to, but after half an hour, she'd gone through all the security measures and convinced them that she was indeed Dr Temperance Brennan, and had simply had her bag stolen with all her cards.

It was 1pm by the time she got out, tucking another wad of cash into her pocket. The teller and the manager had given each other looks as if it was odd to be withdrawing two thousand dollars in cash. Brennan couldn't understand why. There were many items which cost thousands of dollars. She could have been buying a motorbike or a dining suite. She shook her head and went into the nearest grocery store.

Twenty minutes later she'd stocked up on all they would need for the next week. If they were even still here in a week's time. She piled the grocery bags into the boot. The immediate things she'd been dealing with, namely the persistent nightmares, nursing Booth's injury, and Booth in general, had taken up most of her focus for the last week. She closed the hatchback and climbed back in to drive home. Now, she decided, they really needed to keep searching for her dad.

.

Booth was sitting down on the couch with a sandwich he'd just made, and feeling pretty good about his efforts. He'd gone through one makeshift walking stick already (it had snapped), and had managed to get outside and find another one without putting too much strain on his ankle. The swelling had gone down to practically nothing, and he'd taken the chance while Brennan was away to test it out and see how much mobility he'd regained.

His leg felt generally pretty good. He could spend the rest of today resting up, and tomorrow get back into some strength training and work up to using his leg normally.

He was swallowing his first bite when Brennan opened the door and lugged in bags of groceries. 'Hi Booth,' she said somewhat out of breath, swinging about six bags onto the kitchen bench. He grinned. Trust Bones to start her own version of strength training at the first possible opportunity.

'Got enough bags there?'

'There are two more in the car, so eight altogether. I think it's enough food for the next five to seven days.'

'Okay, good job,' Booth said, deciding not to rib her about her bag-carrying skills after all. 'I'll get the others.'

'Oh no, it's alright, I'll—'

She turned around to see him already out the door. 'Booth?' she asked, meeting him near the car. 'Your leg. Are you sure you're okay?'

'It's fine, look. All the swelling's died down.'

Brennan knelt on the ground right there and then and rolled up the leg of his jeans. The grass was still damp from rain that morning and she had to be getting mud all over her. Booth stood there somewhat oddly, the hatchback still open, and two grocery bags in his hand. She looked like she was going to do a full examination right there on the ground. He watched her quietly trace her fingers over the injury site and examine the colour of the skin for any signs of bruising.

It would have been awkward if it was anyone else but her. She was so focussed, off in her own little world like she always was when working. But she was touching his ankle so gently and reverently. _Does she even know she's doing this?_ Booth thought. He didn't want her to suddenly realise how plainly she was wearing her heart on her sleeve. The more she revealed of herself the further she would probably run in the other direction.

'Bones, come on, we need to get inside,' he said carefully. 'Your clothes are going to get all muddy.'

'I can wash them,' she said distractedly.

'Bones.' He held out his hand to pull her up. 'Come on, let's go inside.'

She took his hand and stood up, avoiding his eyes, then went on ahead inside, leaving Booth out with the bags.

He followed her in and found her busily packing things away in the kitchen. 'Did you get bananas?' he asked lightly, finding an apple to toss and catch.

'Oh. In that bag,' she said, pausing only long enough to point. Booth debated stopping her and just giving her a hug, but she was sending out such a vibe of '_give me space_' that he decided to leave her to it. _When did I start giving Bones space?_ he wondered. It wasn't really their thing, to give each other space. The only occasions that came to mind were painful ones. The two of them, standing outside the Hoover, neither trying to hide the fact that they were crying. Bones beside him in the car, mingling her tears with rainwater. Sitting next to her at a bar, almost too angry to look at her.

'Booth?'

How long had he been standing there lost in reverie? Bones was standing in front of him, her expression guarded but earnest.

'Yeah.'

'Have you thought anymore about, you know, finding my dad?'

Oh. _Oh_. He definitely had. This was not something he wanted to talk about today. Not right now. 'Uh, yeah, sure.'

'You told me, the best way of finding Max, is for Max to find us,' she recalled. 'How are we going to get word to Max without also informing Broadsky? We clearly need someone who is in contact with my dad, but who we can trust.'

_Trust._ Crap. 'Bones…'

She was looking at him so hopefully. 'I… I haven't wanted to bring it up while you were injured, but you're much better now... I thought, we should go spend some time in town. He probably would have gone there for food and petrol. If he's been here recently there's probably a friend or associate who he's still in contact with, or a retailer in one of the shops, someone he converses with when he's in the area.'

'Bones.'

'If we could get a picture of him, show it to the store attendants and see if anyone noticed—'

'Wait, Bones.' She stopped and looked at him expectantly. 'Bones, I think we need to talk about this. About us searching for Max.'

'…Oh, okay. What about?'

How could he say this to her? In the middle of everything? She was obviously plagued with memories and nightmares. Traumatised by them, over and over. She didn't even seem to remember McCullough, who was probably the one who had done this to her. But those were the very reasons he had to do this. He couldn't risk her getting hurt any more than she had been.

'I'm not… Bones, I'm not sure that Broadsky is really looking for Max.'

She stared up at him in surprise. 'You… why? What's wrong?'

'I just… I think we need to be open to the possibility, that some of your memories might not… be real.'

Brennan looked confused, opened her mouth and tried to speak but nothing came out.

He wanted to say this as gently as possible, but there was a seed of betrayal growing in her eyes. 'Bones, you've been drugged and tortured, _specifically_ to mess with your incredible mind. The things you think you remember? They could be things that someone _intended_ for you to remember. To manipulate you. Even after you came home.'

Brennan stood there, trying to process what he was saying. 'You don't believe me.'

'Of course I believe you. It's someone else I don't trust.'

'That's crazy. I'm safe with you now. They aren't here, they can't touch me anymore.' She hugged herself, shaking her head and looking at a spot on the floor. 'You think they want me back?'

'I'm trying not to let that ever happen. I'm just trying to protect you. It seems… unlikely that Broadsky would go after Max, Bones. Threatening a victim's loved ones is a pretty standard part of torture. I've been tortured, and had pictures of my son shoved in my face, being told they're going to kill him. It's an interrogation technique.' Brennan swayed on the spot, her eyes shining with tears. He had to get this over with and not drag it out any longer than necessary. 'The first time he called, Broadsky told me, he took you as leverage to get to me. I don't know if that's true or not. The point is Broadsky told both of us what _he_ wants us to think.'

There was silence for a long moment.

'Bones, look at it logically. If they really wanted Max, they had the perfect opportunity to use you as bait. Why would they wait to find him until after you'd been released?'

'You think someone is setting us up. Booth that's ridiculous. The memory I had, they were talking quietly. They thought I was passed out. If they wanted to lie to me, rationally they would have done so when I was awake.'

'I don't think there are really any hard-and-fast rules, Bones.'

'Why would they lie to me?'

'_Why_? Bones…' _She suddenly has Stockholme syndrome now? She's almost defending these men? _'Well, reasons like… getting you, and me, occupied and out of the way. Instead of going after Broadsky. We're the only ones with half a hope of catching him.'

Booth looked at her, waiting for her to say something.

'Why didn't you tell me this before?'

'I—'

'But we came _out_ here to look for Max, Booth,' she barrelled on. 'Specifically to look for Max, to find him and take him somewhere safe. That's why we're out here…' She stared fixedly at Booth's face and saw him look down and away from her. If it was anyone else, she might not have picked up on it. It was guilt. 'Searching for my dad isn't the real reason you're out here, is it.'

'Bones, look, my first concern is you, to protect _you_ first, not Max or anyone else, okay?'

'So you're saying we should just give up and go after Broadsky? That Max, he's already as good as dead. Or that doesn't even matter.'

Booth didn't answer but looked away.

'That's convenient,' she choked angrily. She shuddered. What if Booth was actually right, and what she remembered about Max wasn't real— what else wasn't real? Were any of her memories trustworthy? Did Booth know that she had nightmares about him? Could she trust her own mind even about what was happening here and now?

'McCullough,' she said. The name that belonged to that face. She didn't remember a lot about him—just snippets, little flashes of eyes and hands. Not much, but at the same time, more than enough. Her memories were lies, and now Booth was holding back information? 'How long have you known about McCullough?' she asked, her voice raised but somewhat shaky. Her body seemed to be shaking, too. 'What else haven't you told me?'

She looked wild, like she was losing control of both her emotions and her body. Booth started to feel scared for her.

'You know about the nightmares,' she said tonelessly. It wasn't a question.

'I—it doesn't matter, okay?'

'I _know_ they're after him. He's my dad. You said you'd help!' She was rocketing to hysterical.

Booth made to reach out for her. 'I—'

'Don't. I'm clearly not a valid judge of reality—' She pushed past him and stumbled outside. He closed his eyes for a moment and went after her.

She was standing in a funny way, out on the lawn, her shoulders shaking as if she was heavily crying. But when he saw her face her eyes were out of focus and her mouth was slightly open… 'Oh no.'

She took a staggered step and crumpled to the ground, the slight shake becoming more violent as she thrashed on the wet grass. Booth got down beside her and tried to cushion her head. The guilt was crushing—he'd made this happen, in fact, this was the third seizure he'd been directly responsible for—

He dove inside for the first aid kit and started rifling through it for her medicine. 'Damnit.' He hadn't brought it.

He was out beside her a moment later, slipping his hands under her head to cradle it, talking softly to her in case she could hear him. He felt something hot trickle down his face and determinedly ignored it. Brennan was jerking in larger, slightly slower movements. Her eyes were staring blankly up at the sky. It was getting cooler. She was going to get a cold or something out here, but there was no way he could move her without risking serious injury.

'I'm so sorry, Bones,' he said, his voice coming out a lot more choked up than he expected. 'He told me… Kraus said he had another surprise, after the PCP, I'm only trying to protect you…'

She twitched fitfully a few times then lay very still, and her eyes rolled back in her head. In a deeper, scratchier voice than Booth had ever heard her use, she opened her mouth and said, '_Surprise._'


	76. Chapter 76

_Ahoy fearless readers! (I missed Talk Like A Pirate Day, just felt the urge to make up for it out of the blue.) Sooooo. The mystery at the end of the last chapter won't be resolved in this chapter, it'll stay mysterious for a while longer so stay tuned :o) Since CH 76 is quite short I've uploaded a bonus chapter, which is actually one of my favourites. Happy reading!_

CH 76

'Bones. Bones!'

Booth was bent over her, frantically looking for her pulse. He held his hand near her nostrils and was relieved to feel her gentle intake of breath. She wasn't dead. He had really thought she might have died there for a moment. _McCullough_. He was too concerned for her to waste a thought on that s.o.b. He really wanted an ambulance, or Cam, or anyone… he didn't know what to do.

He shook his head and started to roll her onto her side in the recovery position. Was that right? For someone who'd just had a seizure? _How did he not know this?_ He stopped and laid her flat on her back again, and tugged her legs and arms out so she wasn't curled in on herself. She'd breathe better if she was lying down straight. He thought he remembered someone talking about seizures and spinal injuries. He didn't want to move her. But he couldn't leave her out in the wet and cold. He sat down facing her and ran his hand over her forehead. Even sweaty and muddy with her hair and clothes in tangles, she looked pretty. And peaceful. She could have been fast asleep.

A few minutes later she blinked her eyes open. She was dazed and scrunched up her face like she was in pain. 'Bones. Hey, you okay?'

She managed to focus her eyes on him. 'Yeah.'

_She's understanding._ That was good. 'Bones, you ready to go inside? I want to get you in a nice hot shower and in bed.'

She didn't respond but lay there for a while, just moving her eyes and slowly focussing on the things she could see. Finally she started to sit up. Booth moved a hand to her back and helped her up. 'Okay, up you get, let's get you inside.' He helped her to her feet slowly, because she would probably black out if she got up too fast. He forgot his ankle had ever been sore as he took her inside.

She wasn't hugely responsive, but he was sure she was lucid. 'Okay, Bones, think you can manage a shower?' She nodded mechanically after a moment. Booth hated the thought that it took three seconds for her to process his question and respond. He hesitated to leave her standing in the bathroom by herself. What if she got dizzy and fell over? He ducked quickly into her room and picked out some clothes for her, like he'd used to do every day when she was first at home with him. She was still standing there, her arms braced on the basin when he put her clothes on the counter for her. 'Bones?' She looked up at him, looking more normal than he'd expected. 'I'm going to give you twenty minutes, you just get cleaned up, okay? Just have a quick shower and then you need to get into bed.' It was strange spelling out every little task for her again. It was so unlike her to accept the help.

He got a vague nod, which was probably the best response he could expect right now. He closed the bathroom door and walked slowly back over to the couch, testing his ankle, which was now twinging with mild discomfort. His splint was covered in mud so he took it off, carefully listening out for the sound of the shower.

It was turned on and ran for about ten minutes. She was lucid enough to follow his instructions, even though he would kind of have preferred her to rebel and tell him she'd take as long in the shower as she felt like. He almost smiled at the thought of Bones' usual attitude. She'd softened a lot in the time he'd known her, and he knew that a lot of that was directly because of him. He was beside her constantly, and while she could intimidate a lot of people with her intelligence and bluntness he'd never been put off. It was ironic, how much she'd come to need him the more she had of him. To be perfectly fair, he was the same with her. Somewhere along the way their partnership had become the most important and defining thing in their lives.

He heard her slip out of the bathroom, then her door swing shut. Booth inwardly cursed for not catching her first. He got up and knocked softly on the door. 'Hey, can I come in?' There was no response. 'Bones…' He waited and knocked again. He couldn't stand there worrying that she'd fallen and knocked herself out or something. He slowly opened the door and stepped in.

She wasn't there. But he'd just heard her walk in and close the door. He checked the room again then went back into the hallway. Had she climbed out the window? Had she gone back into the bathroom? He ducked into his room thinking to grab a torch and check outside, just to put his mind at ease, when he saw her. She was curled up on one side in the second single bed, beside his. She was either asleep, or pretending to be to avoid talking to him. _She doesn't want to sleep alone_, he thought. To be honest if he'd just had a seizure and basically channelled the spirit of a psychopath, or whatever the hell that was, he wouldn't like to lay alone in the dark either. And as much as her body language screamed 'stay back', the fact that she'd come in here meant a lot. He didn't want to startle her by appearing right next to her bed so he went over to the windows making slightly more noise than necessary, made a show of checking and locking them, then climbed into bed without getting changed. 'Night, Bones,' he said audibly but softly. Brennan closed her eyes and whispered 'Night Booth.' He thought he might have imagined it.


	77. Chapter 77

CH 77

Hodgins whistled to himself cheerfully as he swung his toolkit and backpack-pest-sprayer out of the car. It had been a while since he'd had some field work to do, now that both Booth and Brennan were 'in a safe house', as they were wording it, and their stream of cases had partly dried up as other FBI agents and their own technicians stepped in. Not that it was all bad. Angela was painting a mural for the Egyptian department's new display, which was at least giving her something to focus on besides her missing best friend.

He strolled purposefully up to the house, dumped the toolkit on the ground and rang the doorbell. It was a few minutes before he heard any signs of life from inside, which he didn't find surprising, and then the door creaked open to reveal a shrivelled little old lady.

'Good morning, Mrs Smith!' Hodgins said brightly. 'I'm here to sort out your pest control!'

The woman squinted at him. 'I'm not Mrs Smith, I'm Mrs Broadsky. You've come to the wrong house.'

'Really, number 23?' Hodgins said, pulling a slip of paper from his pocket.

'This is 21, can't you read the sign? And Mrs Smith isn't there anyway. She's off on some fancy holiday in Brussels, the snooty cow.'

Hodgins frowned. 'Well when she called she said it was quite urgent, she'd discovered a massive termite nest under her house. You should think about getting this place sprayed too, Mrs Broadsky, as soon as one house is infested, all the neighbours are at risk, especially a lovely weatherboard home like yours.' Hodgins waved his hand at the paint-peeled doorframe as if it was 'fashionably rustic' instead of 'falling apart'.

Mrs Broadsky stuck her head out and glared at the house next door. 'Just like old Sarah, too, get herself some problem and spread it around to everyone else. My husband had a terrible flu the month before he died, and I'd swear on his grave he caught it from Sarah Smith.' She screwed up her nose like there was a bad smell wafting over from the neighbouring house.

'Oh, how terrible,' Hodgins said, trying to sound scandalised and not like he was quite enjoying this. 'Well you know, Mrs Broadsky, seeing as I've come all the way out here, if you'd like me to take care of your home for you now I can give you a big discount by waiving the callout fee. Might as well take advantage of Mrs Smith not being around.'

'Yes, I s'pose I'll have to get it sprayed. Just like that old tramp to share her infestation with the rest of us… you'd better come on in.'

She turned and shuffled inside, Hodgins walking slowly behind her. He was fascinated by the place—immediately he could tell that there probably _were_ termites, that had been here for some time, and from the neat yet dusty furniture, it had probably been some time that anyone besides Mrs Broadsky herself had spent any length of time here. He pretended to examine an exposed beam along one wall, sensing that his sour old hostess was in fact delighted to have someone in the house to talk and complain to. A situation he planned to exploit to the full.

'It's been fifteen years now since my Bernard passed away, so you'll have to forgive the state of the gardens,' she said. Hodgins had thought the lawns weren't all that bad, certainly not compared to the house. But she was clearly being self-depreciating on purpose. 'He used to take care of the yards, all the proper manly jobs, my Bernard. I've done what I could but without him it's down to those rotten lazy kids who bring their whipper-snippers and leaf-blowers.'

Hodgins shook his head disapprovingly. 'Well, uh, no substitute for a man working on his own house. To take a little pride in his work,' he said, to Mrs Broadsky's great delight.

'Oh yes! Absolutely. But that son of mine, now he was a different story. Never lifted a finger around this place, not til the day he left.'

'I'm so sorry,' Hodgins said sympathetically. 'Not your fault, of course—I'm sure you brought him up good and proper.'

'Oh I did, how did you know! Oh, I lamented over him! Now you're an intuitive young man. Good to see that _character_ these days. Know the value of hard work.'

'Well that's the only way to get anywhere in life,' Hodgins offered. He was flying by the seat of his pants a bit, but so far it was working out splendidly. She'd be begging him to stay and listen to her stories at this rate.

'Not like that old Sarah Smith, she's never done a hard day's work in her life. Not like my Bernard… so cruel to have him taken away, he was only fifty-one.'

'I'm so sorry for your loss,' Hodgins said respectfully, moving to the other wall and applying the insect spray far more slowly than he needed to.

'And so _tragic_ how he was taken away. He was murdered, you see—' (Hodgins looked appropriately shocked) '—yes, truly he was! Some low-life, trying to cut down the decent people in society. My son Jake never forgave that man and neither will I.'

'It sounds like a very painful tragedy,' Hodgins said gravely. 'Even after all these years.'

'Oh it is! Indeed! You know—' She leaned forward a little in her armchair and lowered her voice, as if telling a great secret— 'my Jake, he swore revenge, said he'd find that man, and kill him if it was the last thing he ever did. He was _driven_. He used to have target practice out there in the yard, he was very good. Took right after his father, very talented.'

'He sounds very gifted,' Hodgins said diplomatically. 'Did your son ever… find your husband's killer?'

'Find him? Well Jake was tracking him for a while, about the only part of his life he ever let me in on, going after Theiss. That's the man's name, Something-Theiss.'

'Sounds, er, like a bad name,' Hodgins offered. 'Sort of… shady. Nothing like Broadsky. That's a good strong name.'

The old woman looked utterly enraptured with this assessment. 'Oh yes! I can always tell, you know, get a hunch about someone just from their name. It's sort of a gift I have, really.'

Hodgins moved around to spray the kitchen, still where he could directly see her. 'You do seem very intuitive,' Hodgins complimented. 'Do you, uh, have any insights about me?'

She seemed taken up by the task. 'What _is_ your name?'

'It's ah, Barry, Man… dibular.' He'd been about to say 'Manilow'. That was close.

'That sounds Spanish! I took Spanish at school when I was a girl, you know. I was very good.'

'Uh, it shows,' Hodgins said, trying to sound like he meant it. She launched into a long-winded story about her school days, and how the sacrifices they'd made during the War and the Great Depression had made her generation far more noble, moral and generally better than anyone else's. None of this information was remotely helpful and she didn't mention her husband or her son once, so Hodgins decided snooping around was the next course of action.

'Mrs Broadsky, with your permission I'll spray under the house now, check there aren't any nests.' She made to stand up and Hodgins waved her to stop. 'Oh no, don't trouble yourself, stay there where you're comfortable.'

'Oh well, if you insist. You'll see all Jakey's old target practices out the back, they're wooden, so you'll spray those too if there's any sign of termites. I do like to keep those, for sentimental value.'

'Of course.' _This_ was a bit more relevant.

'My Bernard made those for Jake, you know. Taught him marksmanship from when he could hold a pencil. Bernard always was the best.'

'What... did your husband do for a living?' Hodgins dared, having a fair hunch that it was in the same vein as his son.

The old woman stopped and eyed him suspiciously for a moment, but seemed to decide the question was innocent. 'He was a salesman,' she said rather quickly. 'A charmer, he was, made everyone fall in love with him. Great asset to his employer. We were all very proud of him.'

She picked up a newspaper and buried her nose in it, signalling the end of the conversation. 'I'll uh, just go out the back then,' Hodgins said, receiving no response. He slipped outside and sprayed everything wooden he could find. As luck would have it, there actually _was_ a small nest under the house. There were probably more in the roof but he had higher priorities than being that committed to bug-killing. Exterminating tiny fascinating creatures wasn't really something he enjoyed. He kind of felt the termites and Mrs Broadsky deserved each other.

He saw the targets on the lawn. Most of the paint had peeled off and they were almost falling apart from being pummelled by years' worth of fake bullets. There wasn't really any information he could deduce from them besides what Mrs Broadsky had already told him—that Broadsky's deceased father had taught him to shoot. He felt very satisfied with the intel he'd gathered on this little mission. Five minutes later he'd done a cursory spray of the exterior and headed back inside.

'That was quick,' the old lady commented as he came inside.

'Well your house is in, uh, very good shape. I found the little nest and sprayed it so you won't have to worry about it again.' Probably because she'd be in a nursing home any old day now.

Hodgins was ready to get out of here. She'd given him far more information when she was gossiping and telling stories than he could hope to extract from her with direct questions. She'd been sociable at first but now she was suspicious and irate. Booth had mentioned that Broadsky was paranoid, and that streak was clearly inherited from his mother.

'Well you just come back soon to go and exterminate at the Smiths', before the termites all come back,' she said, pulling out her purse to give him some money. 'How much do I owe you?'

Hodgins waved a hand to refuse. Then he decided if he took nothing at all, it would make him look even more suspicious. 'Uh, for you? It would normally be, uh, $160, but without the call-out fee I'll just charge you fifty.'

'Really? That's not very much.'

'Oh no, don't mention it, it was a pleasure to meet you. Chatting to lovely customers makes my day.

'Well if you insist. Can I have your business card, in case I need you again?' Polite, but not forthcoming.

Hodgins panicked for a split second and coughed to cover it up. 'Ah, well, the thing is, I er—don't have— see, I left my cards, back at the office. Stupid of me. But ah, I'll call in when I'm next out here to do number 23.'

The old lady seemed to fall back into the rut of muttering to herself about her neighbours, seeming to forget Hodgins was even there. He took this as his cue to leave and went out through the front door, lugging the spray and tools back to the car. He climbed into the driver's seat and closed his eyes for a moment. _I did it. And pretty damn well, too._

.

.

'Hodgins!'

He traipsed through the glass doors and across the lab, where Cam and Angela were coming out of the bug guy's office. Cam looked slightly annoyed, while his wife was just amused at his get-up. 'What's with the spray tank?' Ange asked. 'And the overalls? No Jeffersonian jumpsuit?'

'You can't just go running off in the middle of the work day with no explanation,' said Cam.

Hodgins glanced around the lab. There were squints all over the place, working on ancient remains from bone storage under Dr Edison's supervision—not exactly a private place to talk. He led them back into his office.

'So what's the deal?' said Ange as she closed the door.

'Okay, now—don't freak out, it was a successful field trip.' Cam cocked her head and folded her arms. 'I got a certain address out of Booth's office, and went for a visit.'

'You robbed Booth's office?'

'Where did you g—'

'I went to visit Elna Broadsky.'

'As a pest control guy,' Ange extrapolated, waving an hand at his gear.

'Hodgins, you can't just go after a suspect like that! Not when I have the board of directors on my back about spending cutbacks and staff numbers. And do you have any idea how screwed we would be if the FBI found out you were conducting searches without a warrant, or even worse, if Broadsky found out and targeted you?'

'And honey, you can't just go into dangerous situations without telling me,' Angela said, more amused than cranky.

'Look, I can't just sit here, doing nothing, while Brennan and Booth are '_in a safe house'_. Plus, I'm a civilian. I don't need a warrant to pay a friendly visit. We were just having a friendly little chat, while I nuked a few thousand termites.'

'Okay, okay,' Cam relented. 'Fine. Just—next time, I want to be in on your little adventure _before_ it happens. So… did you find anything out?'

'Well Jacob's father, Bernard, was apparently murdered about fifteen years ago. That puts Jacob at around thirty when it happened. And it seems like his dad was also a brilliant marksman, who had or at least pretended to have a cover job in sales. Jacob has never forgiven the murderer, and is determined to find him and kill him.'

'Does any of this help us bring Brennan home?' asked Ange quietly.

Hodgins shrugged. 'I don't know, maybe it will. But it's something, right? Something to investigate? Better than sitting around drinking cup-a-soups and doing crosswords all day.'

Cam conceded a little. 'Well... it was kind of brilliant, going in undercover.'

'Yeah, I've always wanted to do that,' Hodgins smiled. 'We can try looking into Bernard's history, see if he's in any police files or criminal databases. The killer's name is Theiss, we can look into him too. If he's still around and being hunted, he's probably keeping tabs on Broadsky for his own protection. I mean that's what I'd do if someone was after me.'

Cam and Angela exchanged a glance. 'Okay, that was pretty awesome,' Cam admitted.

'Yeah, you did good,' Ange smiled.

'King of the pest control!' Hodgins grinned.

'Well that's not a title I can see anyone else wanting, so it's all yours,' Cam said as the women walked out.

'I'll get you a little trophy in the shape of a termite,' Angela said.


End file.
